Sisters Aoife and Lisa O'Rourke have guaranteed themselves silver medals at a minimum after they both reached finals at the IBA Women's World Boxing Championships in Serbia on Friday.
Lisa, the 2022 world champion, came from behind to beat second seed Natalya Bogdanova on a 4-3 decision and set up a final meeting with Russia's Alena Gapeshina on Sunday (approx 6pm).
The 22-year-old found it difficult to get going and all five judges gave the first round to the Kazakh Bogdanova, who landed some cleaner shots on the counter.
After a scrappy start to the second, with her opponent seeking to push her around the ring, O'Rourke landed a series of solid rights and finished the round by snapping Bogdanova's head back with a cracking hook to take the second, but only on a 3-2 split.
That meant O'Rourke had to convince those three judges again in what was another scrappy round as Bogdanova sought to hold her up, and even wrestling the Irishwoman to the ground, with no warning forthcoming, at one point.
O'Rourke closed the round with a superb right, but that was only enough to persuade two judges to award her the fight, 29-28, another two seeing it 29-28 to her opponent and the Costa Rican 30-27 to Bogdanova.
However, the IBA runs a bout review system where two additional judges scores are counted in the event of a 3-2 split, and both of those gave the win to the Irishwoman to make it 4-3 overall.
"Amazing" was how Lisa described the prospect of going for gold on the same day as her older sister.
"Just having Aoife on the team is massive but knowing that two of us now are in the final, I don't think many siblings have done that before so it's really a special moment.
On her opponent Bogdanova, Lisa added: "In the first round, she definitely put me a few steps behind.
"But I dug deep and listened to the coaches. Thankfully got through the second round and then finished it off in the third."
Coach Zaur Antia said "justice was done" by the scoring review.
"The first round did not go well but we told [Aoife] it's okay, now we have to do this...
"Second round finished 3-2, I thought it should be better result, as everybody did.
"Second and third round, she definitely won. Her opponent deserved a warning for holding and pushing.
"Thank God justice was done. Until the last second, she never lost hope."
Antia hailed the siblings' attitude and efforts, saying: "This is a big big day. The whole country and Roscommon has to be very proud.
"They are both 100% performers. Very honest, very hard-working. They don't know what fear is.
"They will perform their best up to the last second."
Earlier in the day, middleweight Aoife (27) had summoned the spirit of Rio 2016 Michael Conlan as she completely dominated hometown fighter Nikolina Gajic to eventually secure a unanimous 5:0 victory in the semi-finals, with one judge’s final tally of 30:24 showing the one-sided nature of the contest.
She will also face a Russian, Anastasiia Shamonova, with her decider immediately following Lisa's.
"I'm absolutely delighted, I can't believe it," Aoife O'Rourke said after beating Gajic. "I just knew that the coaches would have a good plan in place and if I could implement it it would work on my side. Thankfully it did."
Antia described Aoife as "a very good hard-working girl and she has a great, big future, we have to work more and more with her if possible".
"It will not be easy but Aoife beat that girl in the last European Championships. It was a close fight but she beat her."
Things were not immediately clear from the opening stanza scoring, which saw two judges hand the round to the Serbian Gajic.
O’Rourke had clearly dominated from the opening seconds with her strong leading left hand, taking control of the centre of the ring, proceeding to score at ease, while landing numerous combinations.
Gajic had no choice but to fight on the outside, and while rangy, with what appeared a longer reach, she was unable to lay a glove on the advancing Castlerea boxer, who is the number one seed in the 75kg division.
Word of the first-round tally evidently made its way to the Irish red corner led Antia, and it sparked a furious second round, as O’Rourke set out to offer the judges no option but to hand her the points across the board.
It was three minutes of relentless, front foot, powerful, yet clinical boxing from the reigning European champion as she dismantled Gajic’s defence piece by piece in one of the great rounds of Irish amateur boxing.
First went the mouthpiece as Gajic gasped for a breather, following by a deducted point for illegal holding – the referee to his credit was right on top of the action and was allowing O’Rourke to display her undoubted quality.
Finally, Gajic was granted some real respite, albeit in the guise of a standing count, as she had no response to the power, accuracy and variety of O’Rourke’s attack.
The judges were now all singing from the same hymn sheet with even a couple of 10:8s thrown into the mix in O’Rourke’s favour – the deducted point would not come off until the end of the fight.
Round three was a mere formality as O’Rourke maintained her control of the centre of the ring, while winding down the intensity, staying out of trouble and continuing to land at ease.
There was still time to impress the judges, however, as an eye-catching combination to the body, finished off with a stinging uppercut, handed Gajic another standing count, and to her credit, the Serbian finished the contest on her feet.
Back in Rio 2016, Conlan’s performance – still unbelievably – ended in defeat to Russia's Vladimir Nikitin, but there was not a chance in the world that O’Rourke could be denied her rightful place in the final where she will box for gold on Sunday having already upgraded from bronze to silver, at least.
