Four Irish boxers will return with medals from the Strandja Memorial Tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria this weekend.<\/p>\n
Caitlin Fryers, Niamh Fay and Gr\u00e1inne Walsh each won bronze medals, while Belfast\u2019s Michaela Walsh fell just short in her final, taking home silver.<\/p>\n
Walsh lost out to Uzbekistan\u2019s Nigina Uktamova by the slimmest of margins, a 3-2 split decision in the 57kg class.<\/p>\n
The 14-time National Elite champion started strongly, picking up the first round on all five scorecards, using lateral movement and straight shots to pick apart her shorter opponent.<\/p>\n
The second round went against the Irish fighter though, as Uktamova closed the distance and landed some combinations on the ropes.<\/p>\n
With the bout in the balance on four scorecards, Uktamova managed to win over three of those judges in the final session, winning on a razor-close 3-2 split.<\/p>\n
Walsh beat American Olympian Alyssa Mendoza on a 4-1 split decision in her semi-final on Saturday, in a great technical display.<\/p>\n
In the same weight class, Ballyboughal BC\u2019s Niamh Fay claimed a bronze medal on Saturday after losing her semi-final contest to the eventual champion Uktamova.<\/p>\n
The former European Under-22 champion secured a big win over the current Asian underage champion Khumorabonu Mamajonova in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
Gr\u00e1inne Walsh of St Mary\u2019s BC in Tallaght took bronze at 65kg after Laura Yessenkeldi won their semi-final on a 4-1 split decision.<\/p>\n
The Tullamore boxer has now won the Strandja bronze as well as the Irish title this year, after a 2025 where she claimed World Championship bronze.<\/p>\n
At 51kg, Caitlin Fryers won bronze, having lost out to Feruza Kasakova of Uzbekistan on a 5-0 unanimous decision in the semis.<\/p>\n
The Belfast fighter lost out to Daina Moorehouse on a 3-2 split in the national finals in January, but has started 2026 well with a bronze in the first international tournament of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four Irish boxers will return with medals from the Strandja Memorial Tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria this weekend. Caitlin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,256601,802,256602,85],"class_list":["post-512544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bbc-rugby-commentator","tag-boxing","tag-mark-robson","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}