Boxing:Wexford welterweight Adam Nolan completed a dream week at the Olympic qualifying event in Turkey by taking gold with a countback victory over Germany's Patrick Wojcicki in Trabzon.
The Bray garda has been the great success story for Ireland this week, earning qualification for the Olympics with victory in Friday’s semi-final to bring the tally of male boxers qualified for London to five.
In a bruising final, both boxers ended the first round level on three points each, with Wojcicki taking a slender one-point advantage into the final round after taking the second 6-5.
On the back of some fine counter-punching with his left, Nolan tie the scores up at the end of the bout on 14 apiece, taking the final round 6-5 to claim it on countback.
"It tops off the week you know. I was happy to qualify for the Olympics yesterday but I didn't want to come in and make up the numbers today," said Nolan.
"I wanted to come in and get the gold medal, I left it late but it's nice to bring home the gold medal."
Nolan didn't get off to the start he expected against his German opponent and believed he could have been further behind after the opening three minutes.
"It's funny the way it goes. My first round this week has been good but I got off to a slow start and was probably lucky to be level. I thought I might have been maybe one, or two down. But in the last round I thought I won it by more than one."
And Nolan reckoned that Wojcicki's final-round tactics of coming after him proved crucial in turning the fight his way.
"He kind of rushed me in the last round a bit. He was doing a bit of moving up to that, but it kind of suited me when he was coming on to me, so I could stick out my left hand and turn him on the hook. So I think that suited me better rather than chasing the fight," added Nolan, who is looking forward to a few days off before ramping up preparations for London.
"It's been a great week, I've four good wins under my belt, beat four quality opponents, so I'll just take a week or 10 days off now and get back into it again with three big months coming up."