{"id":577519,"date":"2026-07-31T17:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/577519\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T17:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:35:10","slug":"walsh-closes-in-on-back-to-back-commonwealth-gold-medals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/577519\/","title":{"rendered":"Walsh closes in on back-to-back Commonwealth gold medals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Northern Irish boxer Michaela Walsh moved one step closer to back-to-back Commonwealth gold medals, after advancing through her semi-final this afternoon in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old, who won gold in Birmingham in 2022<\/a> and silver in Melbourne (2018) and Glasgow (2014) prior to this year’s games, defeated Fiji’s Jasmine Daunakamakama in the women’s 57kg semi-final on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Walsh was a convincing winner, taking all three rounds by unanimous 30-27 margin across the five judges’ scorecards.<\/p>\n

She will now face India’s Jasmine Jasmine in Saturday morning’s final.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Kaci Rock gritted out a tight 3-2 victory over Scotland’s Caitlin Rainey to make the women’s 65kg final.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old, who is the daughter of former pro boxer Jim ‘The Pink Panther’ Rock, lost the first round before responding to take the match 3-2.<\/p>\n

She will face off with England’s Sacha Hickey in Saturday’s deciding bout.<\/p>\n

In the men’s draw, Jon McConnell secured his spot in the men’s 70kg final after a unanimous 5-0 victory over Scotland’s Sonny Kerr.<\/p>\n

McConnell, who received a walkover in the quarter-final, made light work of his opponent and will now face Welsh fighter Orlando Holley-Sotomi in their final.<\/p>\n

However there was no such joy for Garyn McAllister in the 90kg weight class, as he lost 5-0 to his own Welsh opponent, Connor Williams, and will have to settle for bronze.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, super-heavyweight Willie John McCartan withdrew from his scheduled semi-final with England’s Damar Thomas, due to an elbow injury; and will return with a bronze medal at the 90kg+ category.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Irish boxer Michaela Walsh moved one step closer to back-to-back Commonwealth gold medals, after advancing through her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-577519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}