Irish hopefuls in great shape for qualifiers

WITH Limerick southpaw Andy Lee safely through to the Olympics, the remainder of Ireland’s Athens boxing hopefuls are currently training in Heidelberg in advance of next week’s qualifying tournaments in Plovdiv, Bulgaria and Warsaw.

Olympic qualification in Europe is at least as difficult as winning a medal at the actual Games but when the Irish team break camp next Monday they can do so in the knowledge that no other nation involved will have prepared better.

“This training camp is certainly different from the last one,” High Performance Director, Gary Keegan, said last evening as the 10-man Irish team worked out with two teams from Germany.