THERE WAS DOUBLE disappointment for Ireland’s boxers during the early hours of the morning as both Michaela Walsh and Ceire Smith exited the tournament on split decisions to Russian and North Korean opposition respectively.
Cavan flyweight Smith was always up against it in having drawn the reigning world champion, Mi Choi Pang, in the last 16, but came within a whisker of dethroning the 51kg queen in Siberia.
Smith appeared to edge the first round, Mi the second, and a razor-tight third in which not many telling blows were landed swung in the favour of the defending champ as they tend to.
The Eastern Asian was awarded the contest on a 3-2 split (30-27, 29-28 x2 to Mi; 29-28, 29-28 to Smith) to advance to the quarter-finals.
These two fine athletes gave it what they had today against quality opposition. Came out the wrong side of 2 split decisions but will learn from it and come back bigger and better.#AlwaysLearning #TeamIreland 🇮🇪 pic.twitter.com/5TgYWi46Ky
— Bernard Dunne (@Bernard_Dunne) October 8, 2019
The decorated Walsh, who took silver in the European Games earlier this year, lost out to Liudmila Vorontsova who hails from the host city of Ulan-Ude.
The Belfast woman countered well throughout but bowed out on a 4-1 split (30-27 x2, 29-28 x2 to Vorontsova; 29-28 to Walsh) to the hometown hero.
“Losing is hard, especially on a split decision,” Walsh said.
You train all your life and then lose and it feels like it’s the end of the world. I will not let this loss define me. I believe that I am the best in the world and come Tokyo 2020 I will prove it.
“In life there are bad and good times. Never regret a day in your life: good days give happiness, bad days give experience, worst days give lessons. 2020, I’m coming.”
Eoin Toolan and Murray Kinsella join Gavan Casey to give an in-depth breakdown of where Ireland’s play stacks up against the contenders in Japan, and look into why New Zealand and England are primed for World Cup success.
The42 Rugby Weekly / SoundCloud
