Boxers pack a punch on the international stage
Two Galway boxers starred on the international stage in the past week, with Oughterard boxer Kieran Molloy (19) claiming bronze at prestigious Chemistry World Cup of Olympic Boxing in Germany; while Knocknacarra’s Gabriel Dossen took gold – and the Best Male Boxer award – at the Haringey Cup in England.
Molloy was part of the Irish Elite Team that competed in the tournament, with the team coming fifth on the medal table, winning one silver and four bronze.
Fighting at welter (69kg), Molloy met German champion, Richard Meineckie, in the last 16, and soon silenced the home crowd when landing some powerful head and body shots in the first eround, before ending the bout early in the second round, the German having no answer to a six-punch combination, resulting in the referee stepping in to stop the contest.
Molloy faced another national champion in his quarter-final, meeting Slovakia’s Thomas Zold, who had beaten Qatar’s Rio Olympian, Thulasi Tharumalingan in the previous round. This was a fight of two hard punchers with Molloy dominating the contest from start to finish, giving the Slovakian a standing count in the final round.
That set-up a daunting semi-final against Cuba’s Roniel Iglesias Sotolong, a fighter who won light welterweight bronze in the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and gold in London eight years later.
The first round was a very close with both boxers testing each other with the Cuban just edging the round. Molloy put more pressure on the Cuban in the second round, landing the more scoring punches with his three-punch combinations to take the round.
The scores on all five judges’ cards were level going in to the third and final round. Molloy started the round aggressively, landing three-punch combinations with the right hook to the head being very effective. In the second minute of the round the Cuban came back, missing Molloy’s right hook and counter attacking. In the last minute of the round Molloy started putting Sotolongo on the back foot with aggressive attack after attack to the sound of the bell.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.