Sutherland assured a medal in Albania

DARREN SUTHERLAND is assured a medal at the Vajdin Lamaj Boxing Tournament in Tirana, Albania.

Sutherland, a scholarship student at DCU and the man being groomed to take over the middleweight berth vacated by Andy Lee, outpointed Artur Koci from Albania for a place in today’s semi-finals.

It proved a difficult contest for the Dubliner before three Albanian officials and an Albanian referee who gave him a warning for a low blow when he dropped his opponent with a clean body shot. He ended up with a 3-2 majority decision.

Today he meets Israel’s Sergey Golavanov for a place in the finals.

Kenneth Egan, after victory over the Greek light heavyweight, Demezos Nikolaos, will be boxing for a medal when he meets Kenneth Anderson from Scotland in today’s semi-final.

The Neilstown man, the most experienced member of Gary Keegan’s High Performance squad, has already collected gold medals from the European Union Championships and the multi-nations tournament in Russia.

Eric Donovan got a bye to the featherweight final and is assured of a silver medal while flyweight Conor Ahern is through to the semi-finals and a meeting with Peter Moicchenzon from Israel.

Roy Sheahan from Athy, who beat Karl Brabazon and Oisin Kelly in the qualifiers, enjoyed a clearcut 5-0 victory over Denis Hasani from Italy at welterweight. However, Sheahan later lost controversially 5-0 to Albanian, Jetmir Kuci, for a place in the semi-finals.

For the likes of Sheahan, Eric Donovan and Conor Ahern, their performance at this tournament will highlight their claims to places on the Irish team for the world championships in China. There are four places available and Kenneth Egan and Darren Sutherland are already guaranteed two of those spots.

Conor Ahern won his contest 4-1.