Team Ireland excited ahead of Youth Olympics draw to be made on Friday

The draw for the 2014 Youth Olympic will be made on Friday morning at approximately 8am (Irish time) after the general weigh-in

Boxing at the 2nd edition of the Games begins in Nanjing, China on Saturday.

Ciara Ginty will be the first Irish boxer in action between 7am and 7:30am, followed by Christina Desmond between 8am and 8:30am and Michael Gallagher between 2pm and 2:30pm (Irish times apply). Click herefor Saturday’s schedule. Nanjing is seven hours ahead of Ireland.

“The squad are training well and are well focussed, said Irish team manager Stephen Connolly.

“They squad are doing pad work and warm ups. The team are tapering off their training now ahead of Friday’s weigh-ins and boxing on Saturday. Everyone is very much looking forward to getting in the ring and getting the tournament underway.”

Please click here for Team Ireland schedule in all sports and here of Olympic Council of Ireland website.

Click here for Ryan Burnett’s win over Salman Alizida of Azerbaijan in the 2010 World Youth 48kg final in Singapore.

Alizida had beaten Burnett in the 2010 World Youth final in Baku, Azerbaijan a few months prior to their clash in Singapore.

But Burnett had vowed that if he ever met the Azeri light-fly outside of Azerbaijan there would be only one winner.

It wasn’t an idle boast!

Meanwhile, the August 25th, 2010 48kg final was the first bout on the card and Burnett is the first ever Youth Olympic boxing champion.

Joe Ward also represented Ireland in the 2010 Youth Olympics, but the Moate BC southpaw was beaten 4-2 in the preliminaries by Australia’s Damian Hooper, who be’d beaten in the  2010World Youth final in Baku, after he suffered a broken hand in the first round of their middleweight clash in Singapore.