Flawless Siofra Lawless Grabs Gold At World Championships

Bray’s Siofra Lawless claimed her second World Title, by beating two-time World Champion boxer, A Sin Pak of Korea, at the World Youth Championships in Montenegro today.

The Queen of Four Kings Boxing Club defeated fighters from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Morocco and Poland on route to her title winning performance.

The 17 year-old put on a display of smart shot selection, firing from range early on in her medal-winning performance, against a shorter, aggressive opponent.

Lawless, a gold medallist at last years Youth World Championship, utilised her jab impeccably off the back foot early in the first round as Pak relentlessly tried to hunt her down and fire off shots from the inside.

With Pak trying to close the distance, and get inside the guard of the Wicklow fighter, Lawless was unfazed when her opponent was successful in doing so, landing multiple hooks to both the body and head of Pak from close range in the first round, unanimously scoring 10 points on all judges cards in the opener.

Right from the off in the second, Pak charged forward with intent to land combination strikes, Siofra responding with a patented jab of her own whilst shifting backward, evading the bombs that were being thrown her way.

After a slip at around a minute into the second round, Lawless was back to her feet, and back to the well once more with her patented jab to keep her shorter opponents blitzing attacks at bay, switching up her counter-striking approach at times by leading with a straight right followed by a jab.

Going into the final three minutes of the Gold medal bout, Lawless was up two rounds to none on all but one of the judges scorecards, with her adversary aware of this, Pak set out to try claw back some points and close the distance Lawless established from early on.

With Pak pressing Lawless to the ropes and ripping to the body early in the third, Siofra smartly circled out to the right from the ropes and again took control of the centre the ring before the pair clinched in the middle of the ring.

Lawless, the longer and more mobile fighter late in the third stayed to the outside whilst her eager opponent chased her down in an effort to get close, perhaps in an effort to run down the clock, Lawless engaged in the clinch before the referee separated the pair.

Pak’s relentless pressure persisted, with Lawless intelligently retreating to evade the incoming strikes once the ten-second clacker was rung, waltzing her way to the final bell.

With the judge’s final scorecards retrieved, Lawless confidently raised two of her fingers, as she knew her second world title would soon be official, winning via a 4-1 split decision.