Leitrim’s Dearbhla Rooney dominates to win Youth Olympic BRONZE in Buenos Aires
Leitrim featherweight Dearbhla Rooney has this evening won a bronze medal at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires.
The Sean McDermott’s boxer dominated her bronze medal box-off versus New Zealand’s Te Shelford-Edmonds in the Argentine capital.
The European Youth silver medallist lost in her semi-final versus Thailand’s Panpatchara Somnuek last night but was back in the ring today looking to claim bronze and did so with aplomb.
Rooney was, by far, the more skilled boxer against a relative novice opponent who won Oceanic Youth silver earlier this year and, bar a slight scare in the third round, won almost every second of the contest to seal Ireland’s fourth ever boxing medal in the competition.
The Glenade 17-year-old used her speed and timing to land countless clean blows on the come-forward Kiwi in the opening two rounds to open up a near-unnassailable lead on the cards.
Rooney was then docked a point at the start of the third for pushing her opponent to the canvas and the Manorhamilton fighter responded by upping the tempo and forcing two standing eight counts to put the result beyond doubt.
Shelford-Edmonds was beyond brave but no match for the well-schooled Rooney and it does need to be questioned why the New Zealand federation allowed her to box again today having been stopped in her semi-final last night.
The final scorecards reflected the bout well, with Rooney winning with tallies of 29-25 x3, 29-24, and 29-26
Rooney now joins a select group of Irish boxing medallists at the Youth Olympics. At the inaugural Games in 2010 in Singapore, current WBA bantam champ Ryan Burnett won light flyweight gold and this was followed by lightweight silver for Ciara Ginty and heavyweight bronze for Michael Gallagher in Nanjing in 2014.
Earlier today, Dean Clancy lost out in his flyweight bronze box-off. The Sligo puncher was defeated on a competitive unanimous decision by Brazilian Luiz Olivera.
Youth Olympics 2018
Sunday October 14th
Q/Finals
52kg Dean Clancy (Ireland) beat Hichen Maouche (Algeria) 5-0
57kg Dearbhla Rooney (Ireland) beat Roma Martinez (USA) 5-0
75kg Lauren Kelly (Ireland) lost to Anastasia Shamonova (Russia) 0-5
Tuesday October 16th
S/Finals
52kg Dean Clancy (Ireland) lost to Hope Price (Great Britain) 0-5
57kg Dearbhla Rooney (Ireland) lost to Panpatchara Somnuek (Thailand) 1-4
Wednesday October 17th
Bronze medal box-off
52kg Dean Clancy (Ireland) lost to Luiz Olivera (Brazil) 5-0
57kg Dearbhla Rooney (Ireland) beat Te Shelford-Edmonds (New Zealand) 5-0
Irish coach: Dmitry Dimitruk
