BOXING/World Championships:Irish boxers are edging punch by punch toward securing qualification for next years Olympics Games from the 2007 World Championships at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
Most boxer reaching the quarter-finals in Chicago will qualify for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, though super-heavyweights and heavyweights must reach semi-finals because there are fewer entries in those weights.
Middleweight Darren Sutherland and light-flyweight Paddy Barnes recorded last-32 victories at the weekend and are now just one fight away from booking their tickets for Beijing.
Sutherland, of the St Saviours OBA club in Dublin, saw off the Armenian Andranik Hakobyan (22-20) in an edge-of-the-seat four-rounder on Saturday night. He will go head to head with Alfonso Blanco from Venezuela tomorrow.
The Holy Family Belfast ace Barnes followed up Sutherland's victory with one of the performances of the tournament so far on Sunday afternoon.
Barnes was in against Sadegh Zade Faraj and was in devastating form, stopping the Iranian on the 20-point rule in round three (30-10) to set up a last-16 showdown with Japan's Kenji Ohkubo tomorrow night.
St Michael's Athy lightweight Eric Donovan became the third Irishman to make it through to the last 16, scoring an impressive 21-4 lightweight victory over Jonathan Bastisa of the Dominican Republic last night. Donovan will now meet the Italian Domenico Valentino in a rerun of last June's EU Championships clash at the National Stadium in Dublin, which Velentino won.
Two other Irish were due in action late last night and in the early hours of this morning. Team captain Ken Egan met Julio Torres Castillo of Ecuador at light-heavy, and Roy Sheahan met Ruslan Khairov from Azerbaijan at light-welter.
Heavyweight John Sweeney faces the Russian Rakhim Chakhkiev tomorrow following his impressive fourth-round stoppage of Serbia's Branco Srdic early on Saturday morning.
Sweeney, from the Dungloe club in Donegal, forced his opponent into four standing counts in the 91-kilo clash. The referee stopped the contest just four seconds from the final bell.
But on Saturday night the super-heavyweight Cathal McMonagle was stopped in the first round by the Russian European champion Islam Timurziev, who is ranked third in the world and second in Europe.
Today is a designated rest day for the boxers.
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