Katie Taylor into European Championship semi-finals in Bucharest

Katie Taylor remains on course for a sixth consecutive European Amateur Boxing title after progressing to the semi-finals in Bucharest on Wednesday.

The Olympic champion stopped home fighter Lavinia Mera in the quarter-finals of the lightweight division.

Taylor, 28, is now guaranteed at least a bronze medal but will regard anything other than gold as a failure.

The Bray fighter's Irish team-mate Clare Grace has progressed to the welterweight semi-finals in Romania.

Other Irish hopefuls Michaela Walsh and Joanna Lambe were both defeated in their quarter-finals.

Walsh lost to world and European champion Elena Saveleva of Russia in the bantamweight division, while Lambe was beaten by Bulgaria's Svetlana Staneva in the featherweight category.

Bray woman Taylor will face Bulgaria's Eliseeva Denitsa in the semi-finals and victory could land her another battle with Russia Sofya Ochigava who she defeated in a close contest in the Olympic final.

Ochigava, who felt that she had done enough to get the decision against Taylor in London, will take on France's Mossely Estelle in Friday's second semi-final.

Clare Grace will take on England's Stacey Copeland in the welterweight semi-finals.