Roscommon's Aoife O'Rourke powers her way into final 

FINAL BOUND: Aoife O'Rourke, left, in action against Lina Wang of China. Pic: Ben McShane/Sportsfile

Aoife O’Rourke has up-graded her World Championship medal to at least a silver after her 4-0 win over 2023 Word Champ China’s Chengyu Wang in her semi-final bout.

This was a tumultuous and highly physical contest, which included a first point deduction and a third round standing count for Wang. Judges scored the bout 28: 28, 27: 29, 26:30, 27:29, 26: 30.

She will box for gold in Sunday’s Afternoon Session against Turkey’s Busra Isildar - a World and European medalist. This will be the double Olympian and four time continental champion’s second World final this year. She returned from the IBA Women’s World Championship with silver in March.

Speaking to World Boxing after her bout, the Castlerea woman says her coaches will put together a great plan for her final. “You’d be some athlete if you win and replicate everything they’re telling you can do. 

"I’ll take small little chunks and hopefully I’ll be able to implement them. No doubt, they’ll put a great plan together and it’ll come down to me trying to implement it in the ring.” 

Of the huge wave of Irish support in the M&S Arena, she says “It’s incredible. There were times in that fight and I was like – will this girl just step away and let me breathe for a second – but then you hear the crowd, you hear the support and say there’s not long left, just get in to that next gear and push on. Only for them, you definitely would notice you’re energy levels dropping. They’re amazing to be coming over."

Patsy Joyce comes home from the World Boxing Championships with bronze. The 19-year-old Westmeath man, contesting at 55kg, lost his semi final against Spain’s Rafael Serrano Lozano on the narrowest of margins, a 3-2 split. He fought Serrano Lozano, a Paris Olympian, in an incredibly close bout, in skill and score. Judges scored the bout: 28:29, 28:29, 29:28, 29:28, 27: 30.

Patsy, one of the youngest boxers in the tournament, has had an incredible World Boxing Championships journey, with three wins. The first, over Jaeyong Shin of Korea, the second over Cuban-born Bulgarian Olympian and World and European medalist, Javier Ibanez Diaz, and the third over Uzbekistan’s Mirazizbek Mirzakhalilov – an Asian champion and World Boxing Cup medalist. The latter two of Patsy’s opponents are more than a decade his senior.

These championships are the first since 2015 in which Ireland has won 3 world medals at a single tournament. Patsy Joyce is also the first male boxer to medal at world level since his cousin, Rio Olympian Joe Ward, won silver in Hamburg in 2017.