Two Irish fighters sent home from Olympic qualifiers for misbehaviour
Ireland’s hopes of adding a more names on the plane to Rio have been dealt somewhat of a blow.
Two of of the team were sent home from the Olympic qualifier in Turkey and fine for a breach of team rules.
A report in The Sun, a paper with a growing reputation for quality Irish-boxing coverage, states Micheal O’Reilly a European Games gold medal winner and Dean Walsh, the nephew of Billy Walsh and European Bronze medalist have been sent home.
Neither are said to have breached rules in Turkey and the punishment is in relation to their conduct after their respective eliminations in Samsun last month.
Both, who are said to have accepted the punishment, could still compete and qualify via the final qualifiers in Baku next month, but the IABA will rule whether or not hold a box off for their positions in the last chance Rio 2016 saloon.
Walsh was certainly a qualification hope, but O’Reilly was deemed as a medal hope and it will be interesting to see how the IABA proceed with the matter.
IABA president Pat Ryan released a statement to SunSport and you can read it HERE.
