A FULL 12-man team of boxers will be sent to Denmark for the European championships which start on April 1st in the hope that as many as possible will qualify for the Olympic Games in Atlanta later in the year. This was confirmed at the Central Council meeting of the IABA in the National Stadium on Saturday.
As was also the case for the last Olympics in Barcelona, boxers must reach the quarter-finals of the Europeans in order to qualify for the Olympics and, in many cases, the European tournament will be even tougher than the Olympics themselves. This means in effect that only eight European boxers plus the boxer beaten by the gold medallist will qualify for Atlanta.
After a lengthy debate as to whether the National championships should be run on a seeded or an open draw, the meeting decided on a vote of 18 to seven to seed two boxers in each category except in a case where there are several boxers who are regarded as being on equal term sin which case an open draw will be used.
The seeding process will be done by the Coaching Committee and will be overseen by the national officers.
The Council decided to make another effort to solve a bitter internal dispute in the Ballyhaunis club which has effectively closed the club for several months. A number of meetings and legal submissions have already been made but in the meantime the club's ring and other equipment is not available for boxing as the wrangle continues.
Delegates were told that an ambitious programme of international matches is being put together for the next two years. A Hungarian team will visit Ireland in June, an American team in September and a German team in December. A date for a match against Italy is being discussed and representatives of many federations here for the AIBA Jubilee celebrations will be contacted with regard to other matches. The matches already decided will be on a home and away basis.
Some confusion has arisen within the association with the receipt of a letter from a firm of solicitors who had previously been acting for the trustees of the association informing the Council that they had ceased to act in that capacity.
The president, Nicky White, said that he had taken immediate action to ensure that the association was legally represented at all times and another firm of solicitors was now looking into the matter and would be reporting back soon.
The meeting was told that a meeting of the new board of trustees, including three members of the old board, had taken place and some financial details were given. A number of members expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of full information and the new trustees were instructed to pursue the matter further.
The treasurer of the association, Martin Power, protested that although he was now the treasurer for 15 months he, still did not know the full details of the financial affairs of the association.
Three Irish boxers won silver medals at the highly competitive Stockholm tournament over the weekend. Damaen Kelly and Stephen Kirk from Belfast and Jimmy Prior from Dublin were all narrowly beaten in finals.
Kelly, from the Holy Trinity Club, Belfast, boxing at flyweight, was beaten by Bolat Dzumadilov from Kazakistan on a score of 13-9 alter a very close contest. Stephen Kirk, from Cairn Lodge Belfast, lost out to another fighter from Kazakistan in the light-heavyweight decider. His bout was 5topped when Kirk suffered a nose injury which made it impossible for him to continue.
Jimmy Prior, from the Darndale Club in Dublin, put up a very fine show in a competition which is regarded as a very important build-up to the European Championships and to the Olympic Games.
