IRISH senior welterweight champion Roy Sheehan’s dreams of securing Olympic qualification have received a devastating blow with the news that he has broken his left hand in training.
Sheahan, from the St Michael’s Athy club, suffered the injury at the Irish team’s training camp in Perugia, Italy last Sunday.
The Irish team are in their final training camp ahead of the second last Olympic qualifier for European boxers which begin in Pescara, Italy next Saturday.
Commentating on the injury, Gary Keegan, director of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association’s (IABA) High Performance Unit, said that Sheehan was devastated.
“Roy will fly home today to see a specialist in Dublin. The important thing now is to get the injury seen to and hopefully he can make a quick recovery.
“He is devastated with this injury as he has worked extremely hard in preparation for the Olympic qualifiers which are less than a week away.
“The Irish squad are very disappointed with this news and everyone involved with Irish boxing wants to see Roy make a speedy recovery from this injury.”
While Sheehan, the reigning Irish senior 69kg champion, will certainly miss the Pescara qualifiers, he has an outside chance of making to final Olympic qualifier for Europeans in Athens in early April.
Meanwhile, Irish captain Ken Egan has recovered from a bout of the flu and begun training with the Irish team, who sparred with Latvia in Santa Maria, Perugia yesterday.
And Irish middleweight Darren Sutherland will have one less opponent to worry about in the Olympic qualifiers next weekend.
Sutherland could have met Ivano Del Monte in the qualifiers, but the Italian is out of the tournament after breaking his leg playing soccer.
Sutherland beat Del Monte in last June’s European Championships en route to winning gold at the National Stadium in Dublin.
Elsewhere, Ireland will face England in two senior internationals in the space of 24 hours in Mayo and Sligo this week.
The Irish squad take on England at the Castle Court Hotel in Westport tonight (21 February) and both nations renew acquaintances at the Sligo Community Centre in Collooney the following night.
Featherweight Carl Framp-ton, who won a silver medal at last June’s European Union Championships at the National Stadium in Dublin, has been named in the Irish squad along with former Irish senior champion Eric Donovan.
Middleweight Darren O’Neill, ranked in the top15 in Europe, will also be in action in Mayo and Sligo along with ex-Irish senior champions Jimmy Moore and Ryan Lindberg.
The first meeting with England will be part of the 40th anniversary celebrations of Mayo club St Anne’s
Looking ahead to tonight’s international, former Irish senior heavyweight champion and St Anne’s president Peter Mullen is predicting a top class show at the Castle Court Hotel.
Mullen won Irish senior titles at 91kg in 1972, 1973 and 1975 and was beaten in an amateur contest by former world champion Larry Holmes in New Jersey in 1972.
Holmes, who was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame last December, successfully defended his heavyweight title 20 times and beat the legendary Muhammad Ali on a 10th round TKO in 1980.
Mullen said: “The IABA has named a very experienced and talented squad and I would confidently predict that we will see a great night’s boxing at the Castle Court Hotel.
“The international is part of our 40th anniversary celebrations and I would urge sports fans to come along and support Ireland on the night.”
Two talented St Anne’s boxers, Danny Coughlan and Ray Moylett, will be in action against English opponents.
In other news, Katie Taylor experienced mixed emotions playing for the Irish women’s soccer team against Italy in a vital European Championships Group 2 qualifier in Sardinia on Saturday night.
Taylor, the reigning world and European lightweight champion, drove home a superb 25-yard volley to put Ireland 1–0 up in the 13th minute.
But she was then sent off after receiving a second yellow in the 53rd minute, and to compound Ireland’s misery the Italians hit four in the final eight minutes to win 4–1.
Speaking after the match, Irish boss Noel King described Taylor’s red card as a disgrace, adding that he was very disappointed with the refereeing at the game.
Taylor’s next fight will see her move up to light welterweight to take on Sweden’s Klara Svensson at the Fermoy Boxing club in Cork this Saturday night.
The Swede is ranked number two in the world at 63kg, while Taylor is ranked number one in the world and Europe at 60kg.
In pro news, the Kelly Pavlik–John Duddy clash came one step closer on Saturday night after Pavlik successfully outpointed Jermain Taylor in a non-title fight in Las Vegas.
Both men went head-to-head at the MGM Grand Garden just a few months after Pavlik beat Taylor in Atlantic City to claim his world middleweight belt.
And the Ohio native did the double over his great rival at the weekend, receiving a unanimous decision to stretch his unbeaten run to 33 fights (29 by knockout).
Undefeated Irish middleweight Duddy has been pencilled in to challenge Pavlik – contingent on the outcome of his fight with Taylor – at Madison Square Garden in June.
Duddy’s fellow Irish middleweight Andy Lee – also unbeaten – could also challenge Pavlik, Taylor or Duddy this year, according to his manager Emanuel Steward.
‘Ireland’s’ John Duddy will meet Tunisian Walid Smichet at Madison Square Garden next Saturday night – a fight he must win to keep his proposed shot at Pavlik’s title on track. Lee, meanwhile, faces Texan Brian Vera, a star of the TV series The Contender, in Connecticut on 23 March.
Irish Squad for Pescara
48kg: Paddy Barnes
(Holy Family)
51kg: Conor Ahern (Baldoyle)
54kg: John Joe Nevin (Cavan)
57kg: David Oliver Joyce
(St Michael’s Athy)
60kg: Ross Hickey (Grangecon)
64kg: John Joe Joyce
(St Michael’s Athy)
69kg: Roy Sheahan
(St Michael’s Athy)
75kg: Darren Sutherland
(St Saviours OBA)
81kg: Ken Egan (Neilstown)
91kg: Con Sheehan (Clonmel)
91+kg: Cathal McMonagle (Holy Trinity)
