Boxing
Brendan Irvine has beaten Ukraine's Dmytro Zamotayev to book a spot against Russia's Bator Sagaluev in the Baku 2015 light flyweight final.
Belfast's Irvine lost the opening round against Zamotayev, but fought back to secure the win and a place in Thursday's final on a unanimous 3-0 decision.
The first round went the way of the Ukraine fighter as he was busier with both hands and landed on several occasions including a nasty uppercut. Irvine himself responded well with a good right hook and jab but it was not enough to sway the opening round on 2-1 decision.
Irvine needed a strong second round and landed an uppercut and several lefts to win it 3-0.
In the deciding round, once more Irvine came forward, assuming the momentum in the bout, dominating the ring, and landing a succession of right-lefts and uppercuts, to secure the victory 3-0 in the round, and 3-0 overall, to book his spot in the decider.
Katie Taylor and Michael O'Reilly are each guaranteed at least a bronze medal.
Taylor eased past Sweden's Ida Lundblad in the quarter-finals as the Olympic champion went on the attack from the opening bell and showing her wide range of skills, throwing explosive combinations, while also keeping on the back foot, using her jab effectively.
Lundblab, to her credit, looked to go on the offensive but her wild swings were easily avoided by the Bray woman.
Taylor took the opening round on all three judges’ scorecards and maintained her dominance early in the second round as she unleashed some powerful blows to the advancing Swede.
And Taylor kept out of trouble as the Swede kept trying to take the fight to Taylor but again had no way through to the elusive Irish fighter, whose defence was impenetrable.
Taylor went into the third with the opening two rounds in the bag and sensed that her opponent was running out of steam as she was made to miss continuously with the five-time world champion picking her punches and easing through the two minutes.
With the victory virtually assured, the final round was a chance for Taylor to take her foot off the pedal and ease down through the gears with tougher fights ahead at the business end of this competition.
Taylor was awarded the fight on a unanimous 3-0 score and will next fight home-town boxer Yana Alekseevna from Azerbaijan on Friday morning for a place in the final.
Portlaoise middleweight Michael O’Reilly added to the growing tally of Ireland’s boxing medals as he proved much too strong for Slovenia’s Aljaz Venko in this morning’s quarter-final.
O’Reilly came out from the opening bell in confident mode against the opponent who was keeping a high guard, looking not to get hit, but the Irish boxer picked his punches at will as his clever use of the jab and body shots started to wear the Slovenian down.
The Irish champion danced his way around the ring and was enjoying plenty of success as Venko’s guard was breached on many occasions, with an old wound opening up on his right eye midway through the round.
There was no doubt of the awarding of the first round to the Irish man and the dominance continued in the second as O’Reilly kept his guard low, sensing no trouble from his opponent, who had to receive medical attention to his cut eye early in the round.
The body shots kept getting through the Slovenian’s high hands and a second stoppage for the eye cut gave O’Reilly’s opponent a chance to catch a breath. And it helped Venko as he enjoyed some success in the final minute, landing a couple of fine efforts on the Irish man, however, O’Reilly still took the round on all three cards.
O’Reilly appeared keen to send out a signal to the rest of the middleweight division as he opened up and unleashed some devastating blows on his tiring opponent, the uppercut proving particularly effective, and while Venko continued to come forward, the unanimous decision was never in doubt.
Darren O’Neill was beaten on a split decision by Gevorg Manukian from Ukraine in a bruising heavyweight contest.
O’Neill started well against his 21-year-old opponent, enjoying some early success, using his jab well and staying out of trouble but as the round progressed, Manukian started to enjoy some success and landed the cleaner punches, which proved favourable with the judges.
The former middleweight from Kilkenny took on a more aggressive approach to the second round with the intention of impressing the judges.
It proved a scrappy affair with both boxers slugging it out and neither landed too much of note. However, O’Neill did enough to take the round on two of the judges’ scorecards, which left the fight in the balance going into the final round.
Manukian started to tire in the final round and O’Neill, despite looking the smaller fighter, started to find his range with a more composed performance, however, Manukian still managed some success with the odd heavy shot sending O’Neill backwards.
At the bell, the Paulstown man felt that he had done enough and raised his hand in celebration but it was in the hands of the judges and while two of them scored the round to O’Neill, the final tally would hand the fight 2-1 to the Ukrainian as the Irish man misses out on a medal.
Bad decision there @DarrenONeil won that last round handy, #superjabs #Baku2015EuropeanGames @SetantaSports
— Cllr Kenneth Egan (@kenegan30) June 24, 2015Badminton
Scott Evans eased through to the last 16 of the badminton competition after enjoying a comfortable victory in his Group A clash with Gergely Krausz.
The victory sees the number one seed maintain his 100% record in the group, having beaten all three opponents.
Evans was made to work hard in the opening game but still enjoyed a five-point advantage, taking the game 21-16, before making light work of the second game, winning 21-7 inside 12 minutes.
The Dubliner will go on to play in the last 16 tomorrow.
Chloe Magee won her final Group F match against Belgium's Lianne Tan 11-21, 22-20, 21-12; however, an inferior points difference sees her miss out on qualification for the last 16.
There was success for Irish men's doubles pair Joshua and Sam Magee who beat their Czech opponents 2-0 to progress to the quarter-finals.
The Irish brothers were pushed hard in the opening game but always stayed a comfortable distance ahead, scoring particularly effectively off their opponents serve, winning 21-16.
And the Magee brothers wasted little time dispatching Pavel Florian and Ondrej Kopriva 21-7 in the second game, which just lasted 11 minutes.
Sara Boyle and Rachael Darragh have been eliminated from the women's doubles competition after losing to the second seeds in their final Group B match.
The Irish pair failed to win a game, losing 2-0 (9-21, 9-21) to Russia's Ekaterina Bolotova and Evgeniya Kosetskaya.
Swimming
In the pool, Ireland's James Brown made it through to the semi-finals of the 200 indivdual medley but the 18-year-old has failed to make the final as he finished eighth in this afternoon's race.
Brown finished 18th fastest in qualifying and looked to have just missed out by 0.18 seconds but was promoted from first reserve to the semi-finals.
Great news - James Brown has been promoted to the 200IM semi-final! SF will take place at 2:04pm @ards_swimming @olympiccouncil
— Swim Ireland (@swimireland) June 24, 2015Alan Corby, Benjamin Doyle and Andrew Moore also competed in the 200m event but failed to progress to the semi-finals.
Mona McSharry swam an impressive time of 2:37.87 in her heat of the 200m breaststroke to finish 19th fastest in qualifying.
The 14-year-old from Sligo missed out on automatic qualification for the semi-finals but is first reserve for this afternoon's race.
Niamh Kilgallen also raced in the 200m event but failed to progress.
Katie Baguley was third in her heat of the 400 freestyle but failed to advance to the final.
Women's 3x3 basketball
Ireland secured third place in Group C of the Women’s 3x3 basketball competition with a dominant 20-12 win over Slovakia.
The result means Ireland avoided a top seed in Thursday’s eight-finals in the Azeri capital. They were drawn against Czech Republic and will play at 19:30 on centre court.
Chasing their first win of the games after a disappointing outing against Spain earlier, Team Ireland’s aggressive defence kept the Slovaks in check while 11 points from Grainne Dwyer sealed the victory.
“Getting the win is huge,” said team captain Suzanne Maguire.
“[We have] great confidence going into tomorrow now playing so so well. It’s a pity that game wasn’t shown today and the Spanish game was because that was a lot more fun and a lot more of the basketball that we are playing."
Maguire believes they’ve set a standard for themselves for the remainder of the competition.
“Super performance by the girls. Everyone’s feeling like that’s how we’re supposed to play. If we play like that tomorrow I think we can give anybody a good shot,” she said.
The European Games mark Irish basketball’s first participation under an Olympic banner since 1948. Ireland qualified for the 3x3 event through last September’s European Championships.
