Keegan confident Egan and Joyce can deliver

GARY KEEGAN who, as Director of High Performance, has masterminded Ireland’s current Olympic campaign is predicting wins for light heavyweight Kenneth Egan and light welterweight John Joe Joyce at the Worker’s Gymnasium tomorrow.

The pair highlight a nice mix of experience and youth that is the hallmark of this Irish team and victory would put both into the last eight in their weights in the tournament and just one contest away from an Olympic medal.

Egan faces a somewhat unusual campaigner in that Bahram Muzaffer made little or no impression in any of the qualifying tournaments. Ukrainian light heavyweight Ismail Sillakh, ranked fourth in the world, should be here but was banned after a doping violation. He was replaced by the first reserve, Anastasios Berdesis of Greece, but he, too, failed a drugs test and Muzaffer was thrown an Olympic lifeline.