Medal secured for Katie Taylor as she reaches semi-final

Even by her own awesome standards this looked perfectly simple, Katie Taylor now assured of at a least a bronze medal at these European Games - and closing in fast on another gold.

The Bray fighter put in another display chock-full of class as she took out Sweden’s Ida Lundblad in the lightweight last eight bout in Baku this morning, and so Taylor’s next fight, on Friday, is for a place in Saturday’s gold medal final.

Nothing Lundbald did appeared to worry Taylor, and again there was no sign of the wrist injury Taylor sustained in Korea late last year. Taylor took the first round handy (winning 30-27); in round two, she landed a few more combinations, and won that too (30-27). Lundbald kept at her, but Taylor was having none of it, winning the third round (30-26), easing her way through the fourth, before taking the unanimous decision in the end.

If anything, it was even more convincing than Sunday’s opening’s bout, when Taylor breezed past her old lightweight rival Denista Eliseeva from Bulgaria: Eliseeva was the last boxer to actually defeat Taylor, in 2011, albeit in highly dubious circumstances.

There will, however, be a fascinating contest in her semi-final, set for Friday: in the bout just before Taylor, the Russian Zinaida Dobrynina faced the local gold medal hope Yana Alekseevna from Azerbaijan, and not the first time this week, the judges called what looked like a close contest in favour of the Azerbaijani on a unanimous decision.

It was Alekseevna who Taylor beat in her final bout at the World Championships in Jeju last November, so Taylor will face here again in Friday’s semi-final, with the guarantee that the home crowd will throw all their weight behind their woman.

Dobrynina, a former world number one featherweight (57kg), moved up to Taylor’s lightweight division (60kg), but was no match for the Azerbaijani. The judges will certainly be under full scrutiny when it comes to the Taylor- Alekseevna bout.

So that's a European Games bronze medal number three - at the very least - for the Irish boxers in Baku; Sean McComb earned one in his lightweight quarter-final win over Yasin Yilmaz from Turkey. Brendan Irvine also secured himself at least a bronze medal, on Monday, thanks to his light fly-weight win over local gold medal hope Salman Alizada from Azerbaijan. Irvine fights his semi-final tomorrow.

Not long after Taylor left the ring, Michael O’Reilly was in next for his middleweight quarter-final bout against Aljaz Venko from Slovenia, and O’Reilly immediately put himself in contention for another bronze medal, winning the first round (30-27).

Venko then suffered a cut over his right eye in the second round, resulting in two stoppages, and with that O’Reilly simply reinforced his dominance, winning the second round too, then earning another unanimous decision to secure a fourth bronze medal for the Irish boxers in Baku - with the chance of two more to come.

Then, in an effort to round off the perfect morning for the Irish boxers inside Baku’s Crystal Hall, team captain Darren O’Neill went into the ring for his heavyweight quarter-final against Gevorg Manukian from the Ukraine.

It turned into one of the more rousing contests of the session: Manukian took the first round (30-27), putting the Kilkenny fighter under pressure. Things heated up from both fighters in round two, and O’Neill came out the better of it, winner the round (29-28).

So it came down to the third, and while O’Neill appeared to raise his power and pace to another level again, the Ukraine held him off, landing a couple of particularly big hits, and with that securing the win on a split decision.