Donegal middleweight Jason Quigley impressed when seeing off his Hungarian opponent in the quarter-final of the World Championships in Almaty to guarantee himself at least a bronze medal in his first championship at this level.
Quigley was the unanimous 30-27, 30-27, 30-27 winner against Zoltan Harcsa.
The victory marked Quigley’s 31st straight victory since moving to middleweight and he will now take on Russia’s Artem Chebotarev in the semi-final on Friday.
Not surprisingly, the Finn Valley clubman was delighted with the way the contest went.
“It’s a massive achievement for me. I wanted to keep the record going.
“The aim was not to complicate things. I had a game plan of two or three things to do and when the first thing started working I just stuck with it.
“I caught him with a lovely right hand in the second round and he went down. From there on the important thing was not to panic, so I didn’t rush in to try and finish it.
“It’s a three-round fight and If he clips me and I go down, then it’s party over. You have to be careful and smart and I think that’s what I was today.”
Earlier, there was disappointment for Michael Conlan in his last-eight bout as he lost out to Russian Vladimir Nikitin in the bantamweight division.
All three judges awarded the bout to Nikitin – 30-27, 30-27, 29-28.
Despite the defeat, Conlan accentuated the positives afterwards, as he gets more used to life in the 56kg class.
He said: “I fought the strongest boxer in the weight and a year from now I know I will be stronger.
“I thought I won the first round – I was getting through with shots. But the result just didn’t go my way.”
In the heavyweight division, Tommy McCarthy lost out on a split decision to number two seed Yamil Peralta of Argentina.
McCarthy, who was given the bout by one of the judges, was certainly game throughout, but his opponent clearly had the stronger punch.
Ireland’s Paddy Barnes has been beaten by Jasurbek Latipov of Uzbekistan in the flyweight division.
Latipov recorded a unanimous victory over the Belfast fighter.
Joe Ward v Nikita Ivanov – 3.15pm
Source: www.rte.ie
