Withdrawal from Commonwealth Youth Games team

There has been a withdrawal from the Northern Irish team that will fly to the Bahamas in July for the Commonwealth Youth Games.

A top quality panel of young Irish fighters will compete at the tournament in the Caribbean from July 18th to 23rd, however it will now no longer feature Monaghan light welter Aaron McKenna.

The Old School BC fighter has withdrawn due to educational commitments.

McKenna had been named in the team after it emerged that Latvian-born Glengormley fighter Edgar Vuskans, who won both the initial selection tournament and the box-off, was ineligible.

The Ulster 17 year old, who is subject to plenty of pro interest, would have been coming into the tournament in good form following his gold medal win at the Nikolay Pavlyukov Memorial in Russia – the so-called Mini World Championships. In the past he has won European Schoolboys gold and European Junior silver.

McKenna’s older brother Stevie won gold at the last edition of the Commonwealth Youths.

All five team members medalled at these Games in Apia with James McGivern and Aidan Walsh also taking gold, while Brett McGinty and Tiernan Bradley won silver.

Plenty of future stars have fought in the tournament, and in previous editions medals were won by Carl Frampton, Patrick Murphy, Dee McComb, Sean Duffy, Paul Hyland Jr, Joe Fitzpatrick, Enda Kennedy, and Conor Doherty.

Commonwealth Youth Games 2017
Northern Ireland Team

49kg – John Moran (Illies GG)
52kg – Kian Bittles (Holy Trinity)
56kg – Colm Murphy (St Georges)
60kg – Dominic Bradley (Errigal)
69kg – Anthony Johnston (Gleann)
75kg – Kane Tucker (Holy Trinity)

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Joe O’Neill and Gavan Casey speak to Jason Quigley on Episode 5 of The Irish Boxing Show: