Two Irish boxers are guaranteed to bring home medals from the prestigious Strandja multi-nation tournament in Bulgaria
Rio Olympian Brendan Irvine – who is the only Irish boxer to have qualified so far for the Tokyo Games – and European middleweight champion Aoife O’Rourke will box in the semi-finals tomorrow. At worst they are guaranteed bronze medals.
In the quarter-finals of the flyweight division, Irvine underlined his class with a unanimous 5-0 win over Bashkim Bejoku from Kosovo. Meanwhile, O’Rourke saw off the challenge of Sennur Demir from Turkey on a majority 4-1 decision.
But featherweight Michaela Walsh suffered a 3-2 quarter-final loss to Karina Tazabekova from Russia, though most observers believed the Belfast fighter had done enough to get the decision.