McCloskey two wins from Olympics

PAUL McCLOSKEY is just two fights away from the Olympics after another resounding win at the qualifying tournament in Warsaw last night where he overwhelmed the highly rated Croatian, Borna Katalinic 40-19 to advance to the quarter-finals.

The 24 years old Derry light welterweight is in the toughest division of all and, despite his big win (37-13) over the Czech, Martin Halas, on Tuesday, and yesterday’s victory, still has difficult time ahead of him. He now meets the Greek representative in the quarter-finals and must get through to the final to gain qualification with only the finalists going through.

Having said that, on current form he appears to have an outstanding chance of joining Limerick southpaw, Andy Lee, on the plane to Athens next August.

But the other boxers who were in action in Plovdiv and Warsaw yesterday must try again, although everyone in the stadium in Plovdiv, except the judges that is, appeared to think that young Eric Donovan from Athy had won his contest against the German bantamweight, Wilheim Gratschow, and they booed for a long time after the decision, 23-17, was announced in favour of the German.

“It was absolutely disgraceful judging,” the Irish coach in Plovdiv Billy Walsh, insisted. “I mean they are just going crazy out here. They are pressing buttons like piano keys. We lodged a protest afterwards but obviously we got no joy.

“And there was no way that Conor Ahern lost on a 20 point rule or Martin Rogan for that matter. None of the boxers had a single mark from the fights. If they were being hit that often they would be marked somewhere.”

The Wexford man was fuming over the second round stoppage of light fly, Conor Ahern, in favour of the Ukranian, Georgiy Chygayev, and he insisted that while he accepted that super heavyweight, Martin Rogan, was behind against Maurixz Wach of Poland, there was no way he was 20 points behind when the bout was stopped in the third round.

The newly crowned welterweight champion, Henry Coyle from Geesala, also lost on the 20 point rule, victory going to Vilmos Balog of Hungary, one of the medal favourites.

But Billy Walsh will be hoping for better luck for his boxers today when he will have lighrt heavyweight champion, Kenneth Egan (Neilstown), and lightweight, Andrew Murray from Cavan in action.

Egan will be renewing rivalry with Bobcar Kamara from Sweden. The Dubliner beat Kamara 9-6 when they met in the final of the Gee Bee tournament in Helsinki last year and he will be hoping to at least repeat that performance..

And hopes are high that Andrew Murray from Cavan will advance against Alexey Vorobiev of Belarus in his opening contest.

Featherweight Martin Lindsay (Immaculata, Belfast) got a bye when the draw was made in Warsaw on Tuesday and he opens his campaign against Sedat Tasci of Turkey today when Gary Keegan, the High Performance Director, will be hoping to get him through alongside Paul McCloskey.

The heavyweight, Alan Reynolds (St. Joseph’s, Sligo), lost there yesterday when the verdict went to Kubrat Pulev of Bulgaria, 33-18.