Last chance saloon for Irish boxers

THE slim Olympic qualification hopes of Irish heavyweight champion Alan Reynolds were shattered in Gothenburg when he was stopped on the 20 point rule by local star Andreas Gustafsson in the third round of their semi-final bout.

Both men, however, were just battling for a reserve spot at the qualifying tournament as the heavyweight division for Athens had already been decided.

This means Ireland still has just one boxer qualified for the Olympics, European bronze medallist Andy Lee from the St. Francis Club in Limerick, with the remaining contenders heading for Baku in Azerbaijan this week where the remaining spots will be decided.

James Moore (Arklow), bronze medallist at the world championships in Belfast in 2001, has replaced national senior welterweight champion, Henry Coyle (Geesala), on that list. The Mayo man who beat Moore for the senior title in December, has already had two shots at qualification.

The other boxers involved are bantamweight Eric Donovan (St. Michael’s, Athy), lightweight Andrew Murray (Cavan), and experienced light heavyweight, Kenneth Egan (Neilstown).

lMeanwhile Vitali Klitschko avenged his brother’s devastating loss to Corrie Sanders, by stopping the South African in the eighth round on Saturday and capturing the WBC heavyweight title.

Klitschko also established himself as a legitimate heavyweight champ and the heir apparent to Lennox Lewis who vacated the title two months ago when he announced his retirement.

“It was important to beat Corrie Sanders because if Sanders had beat me it would have been a big disaster for the Klitschko brothers,” said Vitali.

“My brother is a big part of this belt. We split our wins together and we split our losses.”

Referee Jon Schorle stopped the fight at two minutes, 46 seconds of the eighth round of their scheduled 12-rounder with Klitschko swarming a helpless Sanders.

Except for the first few rounds, Vitali never really looked in danger of losing to Sanders, who appeared overweight and ran out of gas quickly.

With the victory, Klitschko improved to 34-2, with 33 wins inside the distance and collected the WBC title vacated by Lewis.

Vitali was returning to the scene of a heartbreak loss to Lewis in the sixth round last June when the bout was stopped because of a nasty cut near Klitschko’s left eye with the Ukrainian leading on points.

Lewis, who was at ringside cheering Sanders on, went to Klitschko’s dressing room to congratulate the 32-year-old Ukrainian after the fight.

Vitali, who suffered a swollen left eye against Sanders, said he tried to convince Lewis to come out of retirement.

“I have his title now, and I told him that I hope we can have a second fight.”