Ireland’s Rio Contingent won’t worry Usain Bolt

By IABA Press Officer Bernard O’Neill

Olympic 100m champion Usain Bolt won’t be looking over his shoulder, not yet anyway!

Ireland’s Elite boxers completed a day hard day of track work in Santry, Dublin yesterday, with AIBA World Elite champion Michael Conlan admitting that his legs were falling off him after the session.

Conlan, Paddy Barnes, Sean McComb and Kurt Walker were amongst 16 members of the Elite team – nine men and seven women – being put through paces part in Santry.

Ireland is building up toward April’s AIBA Open Boxing (AOB) Olympic qualifiers for men and women in Istanbul, Turkey, with Ireland’s female boxers out again in May for the AIBA World Women’s Elite Championships and Olympic qualifiers in Kazakhstan.

There will also be an Olympic qualifier involving the World Series of Boxing versus AIBA Pro Boxing in Sofia, Bulgaria in May, followed by the final Rio 2016 qualifier – for men – in Baku, Azerbaijan in June.

Irish boxing will be aiming for a further nine Olympic berths in Turkey, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria and Azerbaijan between April and June of this year.

So far, Ireland leads the way for western Europe with four – Barnes, Conlan, Steven Donnelly and Joe Ward – qualified for the 31st Olympiad.

Barnes, Donnelly and Conlan booked tickets through the WSB – although Conlan also qualified again through AOB – and Ward through AOB.

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