BILLY WALSH PRAISED Joe Ward as “something special” after the Moate teenager guaranteed Ireland’s second medal at the World Boxing Championships.
Ward, 19, stopped Nikita Ivanov of Russia in the first round to book his place in the light-heavyweight semi-finals and ensure that he will leave Almaty with bronze at minimum.
Earlier Jason Quigley added a world medal to his European middleweight title with unanimous decision against Zoltan Harcsa of Hungary.
But there was disappointment for the three Belfast fighters as Michael Conlan, Paddy Barnes and Tommy McCarthy all crashed out in their respective quarter-finals.
For Ward the win was sweet redemption for his defeat to Ivanov in the 2011 European final.
“When I boxed him in 2011 it was completely different because he was physically stronger than me,” he told Kenneth Egan afterwards. “It’s different scoring now.
He put the pressure on me in 2011 and basically mowed me out of it for most of the rounds but I was catching him clean.I said I had to start from the start in the centre and drive him back as much as I could.
Ward will have a chance to upgrade to silver at least when he faces second seed Julio Peraza of Cuba in the semi-finals on Friday.
Before that Donegal’s Quigley will face Artem Chebotarev of Russia in the first men’s middleweight semi.
The unseeded Russia, who has already beaten the top-ranked Esquiva Florentino of Brazil, knocked out Uzbekistan’s Azizbek Abdugofurov in his quarter-final today.
Earlier Barnes lost a unanimous decision in a scrappy contest against Jasurbek Latipov of Uzbekistan.
McCarthy’s heavyweight challenge ended with a split decision loss to Yamil Peralta of Argentina, while Michael Conlan lost all three rounds to Russian bantamweight Vladimir Nikitin.
Walsh said: “I thought Michael was unlucky. I thought we had the first two rounds.”
