Fay-bolous – Niamh Fay blitzes her way to GOLD medal win

Niamh Fay is a two time European GOLD medal winner thanks to another brilliant performance in Croatia this evening.

Fay ensured she finished first in the 54kg class by winning the second fight of today’s second European Under-22 Championships finals session.

The Dublin prospect and European Youth gold medal winner joined Lisa O’Rourke – who claimed light middleweight gold this afternoon – in the continental winner’s circle by defeating Sharon Prisco of Italy

The young prospect wasn’t going to let the chance of another gold pass her by and grabbed her chance with both gloved hands. She set a high pace from the off and basically overwhelmed a talented Italian to win a unanimous decision.

Sporting her trademark fluorescent odd socks, Fay came out the blocks letting leather fly. The teen put it on the Italian and set an extremely high pace. It meant she shifted some big right hands – but she certainly wasn’t outworked and the fast start did seem to tire her final foe.

There wasn’t much let-up in the second, Fay was a little more choosey when it came to picking when to attack, but she still let loose with whirlwind combinations.

The Italian was visibly tiring and was forced into a standing eight count by the Dub with a minute to go in the stanza.

The Ballyboughal BC fighter maintained her take 2 to give 402 approach in the final session. The Italian to her credit was more accurate in the opening minute than she had been at any time in the fight and was catching the Irish fighter on the way in . It finally got to the stage where Fay was the one looking tired but she had done more than enough work to earn a prestigious win by that point.

European Youth gold medalist, Aoibhe Carabine will look to make it a hat trick of Irish wins today when she takes on Ukrainian Karolina Makhno in the middleweight final.