Olympic lightweight champion Kellie Harrington and World light-welterweight champion Amy Broadhurst led the biggest ever contingent of Irish boxers into the finals of the Women’s European Championships in Budva, Montenegro on Friday.
From the seven Irish athletes that took part in Friday’s semi-finals, five came through their bouts to contest for gold on the last day of competition on Saturday.
Caitlin Fryers (50kg), Christina Desmond (70kg) and Aoife O’Rourke (75kg), the older sister of world champion Lisa, joined Harrington and Broadhurst in a remarkable day of heart and purpose and the most successful single day of competition in Irish amateur boxing history.
Belfast’s Michaela Walsh could so easily have been part of the winning narrative when she lost on a split decision against Irma Testa. The Italian, who beat Walsh last year on her way to winning an Olympic bronze medal, squeaked through in a bout that could have swung either way.
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That personal disappointment aside, along with Mayo’s breakout star Shannon Sweeney also departing with a 48kg bronze medal and the overarching sense was of Irish boxing can-do flooding the arena in Budva.
The winning spree was triggered when Broadhurst arrived after Sweeney and Walsh bowed out and how she turned the day around. As often with the light-welterweight, Broadhurst instinctively moved towards contact, the loud snap of her gloves an early indicator that Croatian Sara Beram was in for a heavy nine minutes.
Broadhurst’s strength and accuracy rained down on Beram, her combinations much the cleaner scoring shots. Beram didn’t shrink from the test but the world champion’s combinations when they began to land caught the eye of all the judges.
The first round passed with all five siding with Ireland. The second round, too, went with Broadhurst challenging Beram to somehow turn it around. Slapping her gloves together in a fitful moment of hope, Beram bravely forced it as Broadhurst marched forward, rarely taking a step back to win 5-0.
Light-middleweight Desmond, like Broadhurst, also turned up with her game face. Facing Italian Melissa Gemini, she too held the centre of the ring and dominated the exchanges.
Gemini fell but it wasn’t a knock down. Still, Desmond took the first round 5-0. The Italian reacted and brought the tempo up. While the urgency was evident, cleaner scores from both left and right came from Desmond and at the end of the round a backhand left cut through the Italian defence as if to say enough.
The judges saw it 5-0 again and all the Cork light-middleweight needed was to stay out of trouble. Instead, she dominated the canvas even more than in the first two rounds, the more exchanges, the larger she grew.
By the end Desmond had convinced all the judges a silver medal at the very least was hers, one of them doffing the hat and scoring the final round 10-8.
Ireland were air bound. If anyone on the team could bear a load, it was Caitlin Fryers. All of 50kg, the Belfast light-flyweight approached southpaw Azeri Anakhanim Ismaylova in her inimitable way.
In her opponent’s face, bustling forwards all the time, Fryers improved as the fight progressed. Her go-forward confidence and punching accuracy increasing minute by minute, the first round three of the judges sided with her, the second round four judges bought into the high-tempo aggression.
By the third the Azeri bravely kept resisting and went toe to toe for a brief moment to her cost. Fryers’s energy was telling and sapping with a few heavy right hands towards the end opening the judges’ eyes to a 5-0 score.
Harrington and O’Rourke continued with similar burning momentum, the lightweight Olympic champion’s patience and ring craft easily enough to see off Kosovo’s Donjeta Sadiku.
It was a low exchange opening round, but Harrington owned what there was and took the lead. Raising the tempo Sadiku threw more leather in the second round but couldn’t unsettle Harrington’s controlling position.
The Hungarian judge went with Sadiku but the others with Harrington for a significant lead ensuring a frantic third round pile on. Sadiku predictably came out chasing and paid a heavy tariff with every raid. It finished 5-0 to Ireland with just O’Rourke to close Ireland’s day against the unusually tall Swede Love Holgersson.
Awkward yes and it took O’Rourke a round to fully work it out with the first marked 3-2 to Sweden. How to get inside those long leavers? Then when she did and found her range over the second and third rounds, O’Rourke grew into a champion.
Driving forward landing lefts and rights and scoring freely, the Castlerea 25-year-old pushed her almost helpless opponent back, the broad smile from Zaur Antia in the Irish corner telling not just the story of O’Rourke’s 5-0 win but of Ireland’s historic night.
