February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Jay Mwamba
Ireland got off to an encouraging start in the 2001 World Amateur Boxing Championships in Belfast, winning three of their five preliminary bouts on the first two days of competition.
Arklow’s James Moore, captain of the 12-man Irish contingent in the weeklong tournament that has attracted some 400 of the world’s top amateurs from 66 countries, led the charge in Sunday’s opening action with a 17-9 points victory over Latvian welterweight Aleksandr Sotniks.
"I’m here to get gold, that’s my target," the 22-year-old Moore, whose father is the Irish head coach, told the press. "There’s no point coming here, thinking you’re just going to make up the numbers."
He was joined in the next round by Sligo light heavyweight Alan Reynolds, 23, who stopped Lithuania’s Vitalijus Subacius in the third round. But Reynolds’s elder brother Stephen failed to get past the second round against Russian heavyweight Soultanahmed Ibragimov.
Local Belfast hero Liam Cunningham, who’s 24, was the other early Irish casualty. He came a cropper in the first round against European flyweight titlist and 2000 Olympic silver medallist Volodymyr Sydorenko of the Ukraine.
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Ireland ended Monday’s program with an impressive victory by veteran bantamweight Damien McKenna. The 26-year-old Drogheda native outclassed Xiong Rong Zhao of China 13-7 over four rounds.
Other members of the Irish team that had yet to fight by press time include Michael Roche, the 29-year-old middleweight from Cork who was Ireland’s only boxing representative at the Sydney Olympics, and medical doctor Eanna Falvey, 24, a three-time British and Irish Universities super heavyweight champion. Falvey also hails from Cork.
The rest of the squad comprises: light flyweight John Paul Kinsella (19, St. Fergal’s, Bray); featherweight John Paul Campbell (21, St Patrick’s, South Meath); lightweight Noel Monteith (25, Dockers Belfast); light welterweight Michael Kelly (25, Dealgan and Army); and middleweight Ken Egan (19, Neilstown, Dublin).
The championships, at the new Odyssey Arena in Belfast, end this Sunday.