Barnes and Conlan head to Madrid ahead of RIO deciders this weekend
Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan fly out to Madrid this afternoon with Irish coaches Billy Walsh and John Conlan ahead of their final World Series of Boxing (WSB) match of the regular season away to Venezuela in Maiquetía, Venezuela on Saturday, April 18th.
The Irish quartet will join up with their Italia Thunder team-mates in Madrid today before traveling to Venezuela tomorrow.
The opponents for Barnes and Conlan for Saturday’s clash in Venezuela will be confirmed tomorrow. Barnes is in No.1 position in the WSB light-fly Individual rankings on 30 points after recording six straight wins for Italia Thunder this season.
The top ranked WSB light-fly after this weekend will qualify for Rio 2016.
Uzbek Hasanboy Dusmatov, who boxes for the Ukraine Otamans, is in second spot, two points behind Barnes. He meets Belik Galanov of Russia in Kiev on Friday and can go temporarily ahead of the two-time Irish Olympian in the 49kg table with victory.
Mexico’s Joselito Velazquez commands third spot, five points behind Barnes in the race for Rio 2016. Velazquez is slated to face He Junjun of the China Dragons in his last outing in China on Friday.
Conlan occupies third position in the 56kg rankings. Russia’s Vladimir Nikitin is in second place, three points ahead of the Belfast bantam and Italia Thunder ace. The top two qualify for Rio 2016. Nikitin will be aiming for his third successive victory since March 28 against Okurbek Malabekov of the Ukraine Otamans on Friday evening in Kiev.
Azeri bantam Magomed Gurbanov tops the 56kg table ahead of his trip to meet Puerto Rico on Saturday.
