O’Hara climbs to Austrain summit
IABA Press Officer Bernard O’Neill
Barry O’Hara is through to today’s finals at the the NationCup in Wiener Neustadt following an impressive semi-final win in Austria last night.
But Irish Elite champ Adam Nolan and Sonny Upton suffered semi-final defeats versus Balazs Bacskai of Hungary, the 2010 European champ, and Khansnt Musaev of Austria.
Immaculata BC ace O’Hara produced a brilliant performance to register a 16-7 win over Hungarian southpaw Milan Foder. He’ll now meet Austrian lightweight Chatrici Harutunjan in today’s finals.
However, Upton was on the wrong end of an eyebrow-raising 26-18 reversal to Musaev despite dominating all three rounds.
John Conlon reports from Austria that they were shocked by the scores and that one of the Austrian judges had Upton winning 35-20.
Nolan, from the Bray BC, was 6-5 up at the end of the first versus Bacskai, but the Hungarian went 12-9 ahead by the end of the second and finished strong to post a 23-12 win.
All three Irish boxers will be in action again today boxing for gold and bronze.