Walsh bows out of Olympic Qualifiers
Wexford light welterweight Dean Walsh had his hopes of participating at the Rio Olympics extinguished this evening in Azerbaijan.
The St Joseph’s/St Ibarr’s man dropped a unanimous decision to Bulgaria’s Smetov Ismetov in his opening Round of 32 bout in Baku.
A closely contested bout, Walsh suffered a hand injury early in the bout and also had to contend with a bad clash of heads.
The loss will be bitterly disappointing for Walsh, who lost a dubious split decision to Azeri gold medal hope Lorenzo Sotomayor at the European Olympic qualifier in Turkey in April.
However, the 22 year old had time on his side and will be in contention for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics should he decide against turning professional.
In terms of the upcoming Games in Brazil, Ireland still have a chance of qualification in the form of Mayo’s Ray Moylette who is eligible to compete I’m the WSB/APB qualifier in Venezuela next month.
No. 1 seed Michael O’Reilly and Darren O’Neill, who won convincingly yesterday, will be in action tomorrow.
