LAST UPDATE | 18 Oct 2022
IRELAND ARE GUARANTEED to leave the Women’s European Championships with at least four medals — already a new record — after a sensational day in Budva, Montenegro.
Mayo’s Shannon Sweeney, Belfast’s Michaela Walsh, Dundalk’s Amy Broadhurst and Cork’s Christina Desmond each won their respective quarter-finals to seal places on their respective podiums, while four more of Zaur Antia and John Conlan’s team are just one win away from joining them.
Mayo woman Sweeney forced three standing counts of Slovakia’s Nicole Durikova, ensuring a referee’s stoppage in the second round of their 48kg (light-flyweight) contest.
While Durikova wasn’t especially hurt, particularly during the last two counts, Westport native Sweeney was entirely dominant, her southpaw backhand landing at will as she boxed cleverly off the backfoot throughout the round and a half for which the contest lasted.
The St Anne’s BC product will take home with her from Montenegro a medal from her first ever European Championships as a senior.
Monkstown Antrim woman Walsh, meanwhile, will pocket her fourth continental medal and a seventh overall at major championships after taking a thoroughly deserved 4-1 split over the excellent Romanian Claudia Nicheta.
Walsh, who won 57kg gold at the Commonwealths in August, evaded and counter-punched beautifully against the naturally aggressor in the opener, somehow winning it in the eyes of only three of the five judges.
She was slightly more assertive in the second, timing Nechita well with her right hand and taking it 4-1, leaving her with an unassailable lead — barring disaster — on three of the five cards going into the last.
Rather than get on her bike, however, Walsh actually applied more pressure on the Romanian in the first two minutes of the final round, rubber-stamping her superiority with one 10-8 score as she swept it across the board. One judge inexplicably scored the contest to Nicheta but the other four saw the greater quality of Walsh as decisive as she marched into the featherweight semis.
🥉🥉🥉🥉🥉#TeamIreland's 57kg Micheala Walsh has guaranteed herself a semi-final place, and at least a bronze medal, following a 4-1 win over Romania. pic.twitter.com/0gRYW2USir
— IABA (@IABABOXING) October 18, 2022
World champion Broadhurst, currently boxing out of St Bronagh’s BC, Newry, was in destructive form as she stopped Milena Matovic on her feet in the second round.
Broadhurst, who also won gold at the Commonwealths in August, continues to box above her natural weight at light-welter (63kg) while Olympic champion Kellie Harrington occupies the lightweight (60kg) berth. Dubliner Harrington, too, is just one win from a medal and boxes again tomorrow against England’s Shona Whitwell.
Cork-born, Dungarvan-based garda Desmond, meanwhile, has guaranteed her second European medal after her 2016 bronze.
It speaks to the depth of Irish boxing’s women’s ranks that ‘Tina’ is in fact competing in place of an injured world champion, Lisa O’Rourke, at 70kg.
The former Fr Horgan’s BC woman cruised to a landslide unanimous-decision victory over Ingrid Hanna Hede to book her spot in the semis.
A savage. Amy Broadhurst books herself another date with the podium with this punishing TKO2 win over Serbia at the Europeans today pic.twitter.com/3gDoYQ5Z0S
— Kevin Byrne (@KevByrneBox) October 18, 2022
There was misfortune, however, for Belfast’s Carly McNaul as she exited the 52kg division at the last-eight stage.
The Ormeau Road woman dropped the opening round to Italy’s Olena Savchuk on all five scorecards and though she scrapped her way gamely back into the contest over the next two, she came out on the wrong end of a 3-2 split decision.
Ireland squad
- 48kg: Shannon Sweeney, St. Anne’s, Mayo
- 50kg: Caitlin Fryers, Immaculata BC, Belfast
- 52kg: Carly McNaul, Ormeau Road BC, Belfast
- 54kg: Niamh Fay, Phoenix of Ballyboughal BC, Dublin
- 57kg: Michaela Walsh, Emerald BC, Belfast
- 60kg: Kellie Harrington, St. Mary’s BC, Dublin
- 63kg: Amy Broadhurst, St. Bronagh’s ABC, Newry
- 66kg: Kaci Rock, Enniskerry BC, Wicklow
- 70kg: Christina Desmond, Dungarvan BC/Garda BC
- 75kg: Aoife O’Rourke, Olympic BC, Galway
