WATERFORD’S KELYN CASSIDY is just one win away from medaling at the AIBA World Elite Men’s Boxing Championships after another sensational victory in Belgrade, Serbia.
Cassidy, 24, boxed superbly off his backfoot to earn a 4-1 split decision over Tajikistan’s Tokyo Olympian Shabbos Negmatulloev.
With his hand raised, the Saviours Crystal club man booked his spot in tomorrow’s 80kg (light-heavyweight) quarter-finals, where he will face Belarussian Aliaksei Alfiorau for at least a bronze medal.
Cassidy has now guaranteed himself €20,000 of funding from Sport Ireland for 2022 by dint of his reaching the last eight at the Worlds. If he were to medal tomorrow, that would increase to €40,000 and he would earn an additional $25,000 (€21,540) in AIBA prize money, which is available to competing boxers for the first time.
What makes this all the more remarkable is that the IABA’s High Performance Unit did not initially wish to send Cassidy or any Irish boxers to the Belgrade to begin with. The Déise man has made their conservatism look foolish at best, and willfully negligent at worst.
Cassidy, who last month won his first Irish Senior title with a shock stoppage of Cork’s Tommy Hyde, will certainly now become a fixture in the HPU setup in Abbotstown having proved himself an international-calibre talent.
