Record-Breaking Performance by Team Ireland at the 2024 European U23 Boxing Championships.

Team Ireland has broken all previous records for medals at the European U23 level in its 2024 campaign and will return home with 3 gold, 1 silver and four bronze.

Ireland’s previous records was seven medals in 2022 and the closest to that was three a piece in 2021 and 2019. 

“Results here show the great depth of talent among boxers in Ireland. Every member of the team has performed exceptionally well, and each team member contributed to this high number of medals,” said National High Performance Head Coach, Zauri Antia, who attended the tournament in a Coach Mentor capacity.

U22 Team Head Coach, Eoin Pluck, commented: “This record-breaking result is testament to the individual and collective commitment to training and development, and readiness to learn and adapt shown by every member of this team.  It’s a great honour to contest for your country, and I’d like to congratulate each boxer, their clubs, club coaches and their families on remarkable achievements in this tournament.” 

At Sunday’s Women’s Finals, 2022 World Champion Lisa O’Rourke won European U22 gold by way of a 5-0 victory over IBA-B’s Darya Letsko.

48kg Carleigh Irving will come home with silver after her contest with Turkey’s Nursselen Yalgattekin and 54kg Robin Kelly was awarded her bronze medal. 

The Men’s finals took place Sunday, and 48kg Louis Rooney was first up, boxing for a top-of-the-podium place against Azerbaijan’s Tural Sariyev and became a champion following a 4-1 split: 28:29; 28:29;28:29;28:29; 29:28. 54kg.

Patsy Joyce was in action in the third bout, taking on Scotland’s Aaron Cullen. The Olympic Mullingar boxer comes home with gold by virtue of a 4-1 split decision win: 30:27; 28:29; 30:27;30:27;30:27.

Clepson dos Santos, Bobbi Flood and Martin McDonagh received their medals on the same day.

Seven Team Ireland boxers lost to eventual champions, including bronze medalists Robin Kelly, Clepson dos Santos, Bobbi Flood and silver medalist Carleigh Irving – alongside 57kg Niamh Fay, 57kg Gavin Ryan and 75kg Josh Olaniyan. 

The team have been in training at the High Performance Unit on the Sport Ireland campus since August. During their preparation bloc and with the support of Sport Ireland and SportNI sport science practitioners, have received workshops on Nutrition, focusing on loading, recovery and weight management. The team has received two Sport Psychology workshops, learning in Physiology, and took part in a sparring camp with Italy hosted by the Ulster High Performance Unit. 

This was the first tournament in Europe contested without headguards for women. 327 boxers from 36 federations have contested the tournament -Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, France, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, IBA Neutral N, IBA Neutral B, Ireland, Israel, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine and Wales. 

Images – credit, Bulgarian Boxing Federation