Irish pair two wins away from a medal
Ireland will have three boxers in action over the weekend with bantamweight John Joe Nevin and middleweight Darren O’Neill opening their campaigns in this afternoon’s first session and welterweight Adam Nolan making his debut on tomorrow night’s bill at the ExCel.
Nevin, two-time world bronze medallist who made his Olympic debut in Beijing four years ago, found himself seeded fifth for yesterday’s draw and just missed out on the fourth seed bye, which went to Anvar Yunusov, the other bronze medallist at the World Championships in Baku last year.
It means the Mullingar bantamweight, who boxes out of the Cavan club, will get his campaign under way today against Dennis Ceylan of Denmark.
Nevin beat Ceylan 17-9 at the EU Championships in 2008 but since then the Dane, like Nevin, has boxed in the WSB and he impressed at the European Olympic Qualifier in Trabzon where he beat Oreste Molina (Spain) 26-12, Anthony Bret (France) 12-10, and Edgaras Skurdelis (Lithuania) 19-11, before losing to Pavlo Ischenko (Ukraine) 13-7 in the final.
The winner will meet either Kanat Abutlaipov (Kazakhstan) or Wessam Slamana (Syria) on Wednesday for a place among the last eight.
“I’m a little bit disappointed that John Joe didn’t get a bye — being the number four seed would have got him one,” high-performance coach Billy Walsh said. “It’s hard to figure out, really. John Joe has been a world medallist at the last two World Championships and has been ranked four in the world and he gets number five, which makes a difference because he would have got a bye.”
Darren O’Neill drew a young Nigerian, Muideen Akanji, for his Olympic debut and there is little to indicate that the 20-year-old will pose any great problems for the Paulstown southpaw.
However, he won a bronze medal in a box-off at the World Youth Championships in Baku two years ago and another bronze at the All Africa Games in Maputo in 2011.
The winner will qualify for a last 16 bout with either Stefan Hartel (Germany) or Enrique Collazo (Puerto Rico) next Thursday.
Welterweight Adam Nolan, who won his Olympic qualifier in Trabzon, meets Carlos Sanchez (Ecuador) on his debut tomorrow night. His opponent has done little to distinguish himself from the average but the Wexford southpaw, who is a member of Katie Taylor’s Bray club, faces a crunch contest on August 3 when he meets the winner of the bout involving Andrey Zamkovoy (Russia) and Qiong Mai Maitituersun (China).
Barnes wasn’t seeded for the draw but he was favoured with a bye which sets him up for a relatively straightforward fight against the winner of Thomas Essomba (Cameroon) and Adbelali Daraa (Morocco). Victory here would put him into the last eight and just one fight away from another bronze medal and a semi-final clash with Olympic champion Shiming Zou (China) which would be a repeat of the 2008 semi-final.
Michael Conlan also slips into that category as the six top seeds at flyweight were awarded byes so he goes into action on Friday evening against the winner of Monday’s bout between Jason Lavigilante (Mauritius) and Duke Micah (Ghana) — just two wins away from a place in the quarter-finals.
He is on the same side of the draw as Andrew Selby (Great Britain), who beat him by a single point at the World Championships in Baku but before that he will almost certainly have to face Raushee Warren, who becomes the first American to compete in three Olympic Games.
“My impression coming here was that it was going to be tough and that’s exactly the way it’s turned out,” coach Walsh said. “We’ve got some very, very tough opponents down the line but maybe all of them will be thinking the same thing.”
“Darren [O’Neill] fights a Nigerian and we’ll have to go back and look at some tapes because we don’t really have a lot on him.
“Darren has a tough draw down the line and this guy will also be tough but we’d be hopeful enough for him.
“Same thing with Paddy Barnes — two of those guys have to fight first and it’s a decent enough draw, but they all have to be beaten. He’s got another week to wait and you know he’s not very patient.
“We don’t know much about Adam Nolan’s opponent but we have some footage.
“We have footage of all the opponents in the weight divisions so we’ll go back and research that now. Adam is in great form and he’ll give anyone a good go.
“Michael Conlan is 20 years of age and the youngest member of the team. He has very high expectations of himself.
“Andrew Selby got number two seed. He beat Michael by one point at the World Championships, and Michael won two of those rounds so there’s not a lot between them.
“On his day, he’s up with the best of them and, please God, we’ll get that performance next week.”
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