Georgian Wonderkid Wants to Win Olympic Gold for Ireland

Saba Tkebuchava declared his intent to win international medals for Ireland after picking up his first Irish title at the National Stadium on Sunday.

Tkebuchava won four fights in impressive fashion to claim National Youth honours in his first ever competition in Ireland – and speaking after the victory declared he is here to stay and has plans to wear the Irish vest at the highest level.

The 2018 European Schoolboys Champion, now boxing for Enniskerry, explained how “I’m from Georgia and I fight for Ireland right now. I’m going to fight as an Irish boxer. It happened suddenly, my family and relatives are here so I had to come here.”

A relative of High-Performance coach Zaur Antia, the teen could well get to sport the Irish crest at the World Youth Championships in Spain in November – but has ambitions beyond underage success.

“It’s good, I feel excited but I have to train more for bigger championships and I’m going to keep training for bigger tournaments and win World and Olympic medals. My goal is the Olympics and I am going to keep going to achieve my goal.”

Reflecting on his run to a first Irish title Saba said: “I had four hard fights and I want to say thanks to my opponents for good fights and how respectful they were I wish all of them the best of luck.”