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Darren Sutherland books Olympic ticket at Athens qualifier tournament

Local boxer Darren Sutherland has secured qualification for the Olympic Games which will be held in Bejing next August. It has been a longer road than anticipated for Sutherland who was expected to achieve qualification through the World Championship last year but a disappointing early exit in that competition left him working his way through the national championships and Olympic qualifiers.

At the final qualifying competition held in Athens last week he performed superbly to bring off a series of wins culminating in winning the gold medal in his division in the Greek captial. As things transpired even if Sutherland had lost in the semi-finals he still would have been in line for a box-off for Olympic qualification. Reaching the final guaranteed a place among the runners and riders in Bejing, but the Dublin City University student managed to go one better by winning the final as well. Local boxer Darren Sutherland

In the opening bout, Sutherland, who boxes out of the St. Saviour’s club in Dublin, dominated all four rounds to gain a 5-0 preliminary round win over Niko Jokinen of Finland. Within twenty-four hours he had followed this up with another win. This time the victim was Norway’s Eneste Glodi, who was comprehensively out-pointed by 27-7 over four rounds.

The next fight saw Sutherland contesting the quarter-final where his opponent was Zoran Mitrovic of Serbia. The Irishman got well on top of a game opponent in this bout to come through on a convincing 38-17 margin.

This left the Sutherland in the semi-finals, and on the cusp of Olympic qualification. Even a defeat here still had the safety net of a box-off against the other defeated semi-finalist. However, Sutherland was not in the mood for second chances and produced another good performance to beat Moldova's Victor Cotiujanschii. In this bout Sutherland’s opponent was forced to retire with a facial injury in the third round at which stage the winner led 21-7 according to the judges.

This ensured participation in Beijing but a gold medal was also up for grabs in Athens. That would be decided by the final bout between Sutherland and a Frenchman called Jean-Michel Raymond. Again Sutherland was in fine form, on this occasion winning a cagily fought bout in which either opponent already had a plane ticket to Chine irrespective of the outcome.

The margin in this one was 12-3 and Sutherland has a late summer full of high drama and some of that old clichéd eastern promise to look forward to in the coming months.

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