Roy Sheehan and Darren Sutherland both advanced to the round of 16 at the World Amateur boxing Championship in China.
Roy Sheehan, the Athy Welterweight, 69 kg, won his round of 32 bout against Croatian Katalinic Borna in dramatic fashion.
Leading 22-20 with two seconds to go the Athy boxer dropped two quick points.
At 22-22 the fight went to countback, which Sheehan won as the more aggressive boxer.
Gary Keegan, Team Manager, said: "Roy hit him with some great shots. This is his first world championship bout, and he will learn to control these fights when he is on top. We didn't want to rely on countback but winning is the name of the game and Roy is in the last 16."
In his first World Championship bout, Middleweight Darren Sutherland stopped G.Badrakh of Mongolia in round two.
In total control throughout the St Saviours man forced a standing count in the second round before the referee ended the contest on the 20 point rule with the score at 25-5.
He faces Edwin Kelly Rodriguz of the USA in the last 16 tomorrow, Wednesday. The American had four tough rounds against a Bulgarian compared with the smooth progress of the Irishman.
Billy Walsh, Head Coach, said; "That was an impressive performance from a young man performing at this level for the first time. The Mongolian was an unknown force but Darren stepped up to the challenge and completely dominated him from the first bell. The sets him up nicely for the bout tomorrow.
Earlier today, Conor Ahern was defeated 31-17 by Nica Izoria of Georgia in his round-of-32 Flyweight (51kg) contest in Minayang.
The score didn't reflect the closeness of an entertaining and all-action fight.
The Georgian started the fight as favourite being the current European silver medallist and used his height advantage to impress the judges with clean hits.
Ahern got inside the reach on a few occasions to land damaging blows and forced the referee to give a standing count to Azoria in round two.
Coach Billy Walsh said after the fight: “It was a good performance by Conor, he landed more shots than the judges allowed but he couldn't get close enough on the scoreboard to pressurise Izoria.”
