Jon McConnell has guaranteed Team Ireland its first medal at the 2026 European Elite Championships in Sofia with a bruising 70kg quarter-final 3-2 split decision win over Italy’s Gabriele Guidi Rontani.
The Holy Trinity, Belfast boxer was made to work every step of the way to secure his place on the podium by an opponent who took to the front foot and made life immensely awkward with the intensity of his approach.
Both men needed attention for cuts over the eye as they clinched and grappled time and again despite the frustrated efforts of the referee to separate them.
Stoppages were littered throughout and both were docked a point in the last round.
McConnell built a slim early lead, but it was always tight. He had enough in the bank to survive a third round he ultimately lost on all five of the judges’ cards.
The reigning Commonwealth Games champion, he fights again in a semi-final on Wednesday against Azerbaijan’s Nabi Isgandarov who is a World Boxing Cup Brazil bronze medalist this year.
“I’m over the moon. It was some fight, it was a close fight. He just wouldn’t stop. It was dirty enough with the head and stuff but I just kept my composure in that last round. I got dragged into a fight a bit in that last 30 seconds but I knew I had won.
“Then a point off, I didn’t know what way it would go and then he got a point off, and rightly so for the head, but in the semi-final. Let’s go.”
Jude Gallagher (left) is one bout from a European Elite medal. Pic: INPHO/James Crombie
McConnell has done it the hard way: that was his third win of the week.
Team Ireland has another six fighters standing one bout away from medals after impressive wins earlier on Monday for Jude Gallagher and Michaela Walsh, with McConnell crediting the former’s performance for giving him a lift before his own bout.
Gallagher won with a blistering performance to stop Frenchman Lounes Hamraoui in their last 16 bout.
The 24-year old, a Paris Olympian, fell behind on four of the five scorecards after a cagey first round when he was caught on the counter too often by his opponent, but the response was hugely impressive.
Gallagher tore into Hamraoui from the second the bell went for round two, backing him into corners with a succession of intense attacks and a plethora of body blows that opened up the defences higher up.
The Frenchman took a standing count, and then another in the third round, before the Dutch referee put an end to it. Gallagher, a 2022 Commonwealth champion who won bronze at this summer’s edition, is now three rounds from a European equivalent in the 60kg class.
“Delighted,” he said. “Against a very, very good opponent. I went out and tried to box him in the first round, he’s a counter puncher, so he just edged me in that because I was a wee bit slow.
“Had to change the tactics second round and caught him early with a body shot. Count in the second and finish in the third so delighted.”
Michaela Walsh, a double Olympian and 2026 Commonwealth Games silver medalist, was dominant throughout her 57kg last 16 contest against Montenegro’s Bojana Gojkovic. Her 5-0 win was scored 27:30; 27:30; 27:30; 27:30; 27:30.
She’ll take on Bulgarian Stanimira Petrova in the fight for a medal in Wednesday’s evening session. Petrova is a triple Olympian and a 2014 World champion who has just defeated the World and Paris Games silver medalist, Julia Szeremeta.
Walsh and Petrova have met twice before, at the 2019 European Games in Minsk, and at a Tokyo qualifier in 2021. They have one win, apiece.
Four other Irish boxers – Daina Moorehouse, Lisa O’Rourke, Evelyn Igharo and Jack Marley – are already through to quarter-final medal fights on the Tuesday.
It wasn’t all rosy.
Dublin’s Kellie McLoughlin exited the tournament with a 60kg split decision loss to Sthelyne Grosy of France, while Gavin Rafferty lost out to Mateusz Urban of Poland in the 75kg division, both in the last 16 rounds.