Around the Ring

It is expected that the vast majority of the 11-man Irish team that won three gold and two silver medals at last Saturday’s European Union Championships at the National Stadium in Dublin will be travelling east.

However, bantamweight Carl Frampton, who won silver at the championships, is expected to make way for Irish senior featherweight champion David Oliver Joyce for the trip to the Ukraine.

Frampton, from the Midlands White City club in Belfast, was called up to the squad following an injury to Joyce (St Michael’s Athy), and performed magnificently to reach his 57kg final.

The Irish Amateur Boxing Association (IABA) celebrated a hat-trick last Saturday as Ken Egan, Darren Sutherland, and Roy Sheahan all won gold at the 5th European Union Championships. And to cap an incredible day in the history of the IABA, Frampton and Cathal McMonagle won silver to ensure that their country finished on top of the medals table.

McMonagle, from the Holy Trinity club in Belfast, lit the fuse under the championships after coming back from the dead to chalk up a thrilling semi-final win on Friday night. That victory had the crowd on their feet at the National Stadium and ignited the entire Irish challenge in Saturday’s finals against some of the top amateur boxers in the world.

St Michael’s Athy welterweight Roy Sheahan got the gold rush underway when his final with Xavier Noel was stopped in the fourth after the French puncher received a cut over his right eye. And Sutherland, from the St Saviours club in Dublin, saw off the challenge of English number one James Degale, winning all four rounds before being handed a 23–17 verdict.

Irish captain Ken Egan then landed his second European Union Boxing Championships gold in two years – and he was only boxing with one hand.

Egan, from the Neilstown club in Dublin, was in against Romanian European bronze medallist Bejenaru Constantin, and used his right jab to lethal effect to carve out a 23–17 victory in the light heavyweight class. Egan, who is also a European bronze medallist, was just back from an injury to his left hand and was obviously reluctant to use the left against Constantin. So it was right jabs all the way, and the Romanian boxer had no answer to the more skilful performance of the Irish skipper.

Carl Frampton and super heavyweight Cathal McMonagle had to be content with silver, despite their brave showings at the National Stadium.

Frampton was beaten by Khedafi Djelkhir of France (who was presented with the boxer of the tournament award) and McMonagle lost out to Italian Olympic and World Championships bronze medallist Roberto Cammarelle, ranked in the top three in the world.

The entire tournament was an enormous success for the IABA in terms of medals won, organisation, efficiency and good old-fashioned Irish hospitality. And the medals haul has seen Ireland confirm her newfound status as the number open amateur boxing nation in the European Union.

Commentating after the championships, IABA president Dominic O’Rourke heaped praise on the entire Irish squad.

“Unbelievable is the only word I can use to describe it,” he said. “The entire Irish squad boxed their hearts out for their country and they have done themselves, their country and their clubs proud here at the National Stadium.

“The European Union Championships have been fantastic and I would like to thank everyone involved for the tremendous efforts they have put into making this tournament such an enormous success.”

Meanwhile, unbeaten European super bantamweight champion Bernard Dunne racked up the 24th victory of his career against Norwegian Reidar Walstad at the Point last Saturday night.

Walstad appeared content to allow Dunne to use his head as target practice for left jabs throughout most of the 12 rounds, and was completely outboxed.

Dunne was the consummate professional throughout, and declined the exhortations of the packed-out Point crowd to move in and take Walstad out of his misery, instead opting to work behind his jab for most of the evening before being handed a unanimous (118–111, 116–112, 115–113) verdict.

It was the correct decision by Dunne, as the only chance the Scandinavian had of winning this clash was to engage in close-range combat and land a sucker punch; Dunne has been around long enough to avoid becoming embroiled in such a war. Walstad, meanwhile, could do with a crash course in self-defence – in other words, ‘keep your hands up’.

Almost ironically, given the above, the only time the Norwegian raised his hands around his head during the fight was when he absurdly walked back to his corner with both hands raised in a victory salute to indicate that he had won a round.

This – to the embarrassment of even his own corner – went on for the first three rounds until the Norwegian ceased behaving like an imbecile and instead concentrated all his efforts on allowing himself to be comprehensively outclassed.

Dunne, in the meantime, is now looking ahead to a mandatory European super bantamweight title defence, which will probably be against Spanish puncher Kiko Martinez.

The Spaniard, nicknamed ‘La Sensacion’, remains unbeaten after 16 fights (13 KOs) and, at 21 years old, is six years Dunne’s junior.

If Dunne emerges victorious from that showdown, then surely it will be time to challenge for a world title, which the Dubliner’s manager Peters and coach Harry Hawkins refer to as “the big one”.



5th European Union Champ-ionships Finals Results

Light flyweight – 48kg: Kelvin de la Nieve (Spain) lost to Pal Bedak (Hungary) 10–20 (1–3, 3–8, 9–15)
Flyweight – 51g: Hafid Bouji (Germany) beat Salim Salimov (Bulgaria) 20–7 (4–0, 8–3, 13–3)
Bantamweight – 54kg: Denis Makarov (Germany) lost to Detelin Dalakliev (Bulgaria) 7–16 (1–3, 4–8, 5–14)
Featherweight – 57kg: Carl Frampton (Ireland) lost to Khedafi Djelkhir (France) 27–37 (8–6, 13–12, 20–25)
Lightweight – 60kg: Eugen Burhard (Germany) lost to Daouda Sow (France) 7–16 (1–3, 4–7, 4–13)
Light welterweight – 64kg: Marcin Legowski (Poland) lost to Ionut Gheroghe (Romania) 6–17 (3–4, 4–11, 6–14)
Welterweight – 69kg: Roy Sheehan (Ireland) beat Xavier Noel (France) RSCI4 (1–1, 5–3, 7–7)
Middleweight – 75kg: Darren Sutherland (Ireland) beat James Degale (England) 23–19 (7–5, 13–10, 20–5)
Light heavyweight – 81kg: Constantin Bejenaru (Roman-ia) lost to Ken Egan (Ireland) 17–23 (3–7, 9–14, 13–20)
Heavyweight – 91kg: Helias Pavlidis (Greece) beat Clemente Russo (Italy) 13–8 (1–1, 4–2, 7–5)
Super heavyweight – 91+kg: Roberto Cammarelle (Italy) beat Cathal McMonagle (Ireland) 20–8 (5–0, 11–4, 15–7)
Boxer of the tournament: Khedafi Djelkhir (France)