Lee stays in hunt for Olympics

LIMERICK’S Andy Lee, a former Irish Examiner/TV3 national junior sports star, takes on England’s Commonwealth Games gold medallist Darren Barker in the last 16 of the European Senior Boxing Championships in Pula, Croatia today.

Lee, who defeated his Geogian opponent David Tsiklauri on Friday, is Ireland’s sole remaining competitor after Conor Ahern and Paul Hyland were both defeated yesterday.

Hyland (Fly) lost to Fuad Aslanov of Azerbaijan 47 to 33. Ahern (Light Fly) was stopped by his Italian opponent Alfonso Pinto in the third round under the 20 point rule.

Henry Coyle (Welter) and Paul McCloskey (Light Welter) made their exits on Saturday. Coyle lost to Theodoros Katokos of Greece 32 to 21 while McCloskey went down 22 to 16 against Igor Pashchuk of the Ukraine.

This followed defeats on Friday night for Eric Donovan (Bantam) and Andrew Murray (Light) to Ukrainian and Croatian opponents respectively.

“We are disappointed with the results but proud of the performances of the boxers. It is a young team who have prepared well and are in great physical shape. In particular Eric Donovan, Andrew Murray and Paul McCloskey performed exceptional well and in different circumstances could have won their fights.

“Our target from the Tournament was one qualifier for the Olympics and with Andy Lee still involved it remains a realistic goal,” Gary Keegan, Performance Director for the IABA said.

All semi-finalists will automatically qualify for the Olympic Games in Athens with four more places to be decided at other tournaments in Spring. Eight spots in each of the 11 weight divisions will go to Europe, with Greece, as the hosts, guaranteed six spots.