FORMER WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP gold medalist Kellie Harrington will square off with formidable professional world champion, Maiva Hamadouche, for a place at the Tokyo Olympics this summer after the Dubliner earned a unanimous-decision last-16 win over Poland’s Aneta Rygielska.
Harrington cruised to a 5-0 unanimous decision and into the 60kg quarter-finals, crowning a perfect day for Bernard Dunne and Zaur Antia’s Irish team who won all five of their bouts as the European leg of Olympic qualification resumed in Paris after a 15-month delay.
If Harrington beats hometown hero Hamadouche tomorrow night, she will be guaranteed a spot at this summer’s Tokyo Games. However, the loser will also get a backdoor opportunity to qualify by way of a box-off with another opponent.
Conquering ‘El Veneno’ (‘The Poison’) will require a legitimately world-class performance from the Dubliner. Hamadouche is a ferocious puncher with a record of 22-1 (18KOs) in the professional ranks, her sole defeat arriving at the hands of Delfine Persoon in 2015.
The IBF super-featherweight champion is signed to Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Promotions and has, in the past, been earmarked as a potential opponent for Katie Taylor.
In amateur competition, Hamadouche took silver at the 2019 Europeans which Harrington missed through injury, losing out to Mira Potkonen in the final.
Harrington’s bout with Hamadouche will be streamed live on the Olympics’ official website tomorrow night (time TBC).
Three of Harrington’s team-mates are also just a fight away from Tokyo, while Michaela Walsh can more or less book her tickets after ostensibly securing qualification 45 minutes before Harrington took to the ring.
The highly decorated Belfast woman outclassed European and EU Championships bronze medallist Mona Mestiaen of France at 57kg and will have two more opportunities — a quarter-final against Sweden’s Stephanie Thour and, if she was to need it, a box-off — to seal qualification through the conventional tournament route.
However, per the maths of Irish-boxing.com’s Joe O’Neill, today’s results should leave Walsh home and hosed in the rankings that will be used to complete boxing’s Olympic lineup upon the conclusion of this tournament, and so it would appear Walsh will compete in Japan either by hook or by the books.
Walsh’s younger brother, Aidan, also cruised to victory over French opposition in the Men’s 69kg division, outmanoeuvring the difficult Wahid Hambli on a 4-1 split decision. Like Michaela, the former Commonwealth Games silver medalist will have two shots at qualifying for Rio.
With only four spots available in the women’s 75kg category, Roscommon’s Aoife O’Rourke doesn’t have the safety net of a box-off but if she can produce more of today’s performance against former European Games foe Viktoryia Kebikava of Belarus, she won’t need one. The 23-year-old European champion was sensational and destructive, winning all three rounds 10-8 on one judges’ scorecard. Incredibly, despite four judges seeing it as a landslide — 30-25, 30-24 and 30-27 x2 in her favour — one gave it to Kebikava meaning O’Rourke won by a split decision rather than a unanimous one.
O’Rourke will face Poland’s Ela Wójcik in an Olympic shootout tomorrow.
And Dublin’s Emmett progressed to the 81kg quarter-finals with a unanimous-decision victory over Swiss fighter Uke Smajli. Brennan was impressive throughout, surviving a late fightback after establishing his dominance over most of the contest. Light-heavyweight Brennan will get two bites at the cherry as he bids to qualify for his first Olympics at 30.
