Congratulations to the Irish Boxing Team who claimed four medals at the European Boxing Championships in Belarus. at the weekend.
Olympic Silver Medallist John Joe Nevin won Gold in the bantamweight final after defeating Mykola Butsenko of Ukraine on a unanimous decision outclassing his opponent to claim a 30-27, 29-28, 29-28 win in Minsk.
Nevin was also named boxer of the tournament.
Nevin told RTÉ Sport: “We weren’t taking silver this time we were aiming for the gold. It’s down to conditioning, we’d a great camp, I knew I had everything done right.”
Coach Billy Walsh added: “He’s been fantastic the whole championships. He’s a world class athlete, it’s nice to win silver to but to win gold is what it’s all about.”
Middleweight Jason Quigley also won Gold in a very close fight against Romania’s Bogdan Juratoni.
The judges were split but the Donegal fighter won on a scoreline of 30-27, 28-29, 29-28.
Earlier, Belfast’s Michael Conlan had to be satisfied with silver as he lost to Andrew Selby in the flyweight final.
The 21-year-old lost on a split decision 28-29, 29-28, 30-27.
Conlan was defeated by Selby in their World Championship quarter-final in 2011 and also lost a close fight with Selby in this year’s World Series of Boxing.
Unfortunately Paddy Barnes was ruled out of the light-flyweight final with Russia’s David Ayrapetyan because of a fractured nose.
The Belfast man suffered the injury in his first fight of the week but after consulting with Billy Walsh it was decided to withdraw him.
“The safety of our boxers is more important than gold medals,” said Walsh.
Barnes’ nose was bleeding in yesterday’s semi-final victory over Salman Alizada of Azerbaijan and he needed attention from the ringside doctor during the bout.
Ayrapetyan took the 49kg gold medal on a walkover.
Barnes, a gold medal winner at the 2010 European Championships, took silver.
49Kg: David Ayrapetayan (Russia) bt Patrick Barnes (Ireland) Walkover
52Kg: Andrew Selby (Wales) bt Michael Conlan (Ireland)
56Kg: John Joe Nevin (Ireland) bt Mykola Butsenko (Ukraine)
75Kg: Jason Quigley (Ireland) bt Bogdan Juratoni (Romania)
