Commonwealth Games: NI's Carly McNaul, Jude Gallagher and Eireann Nugent guaranteed boxing medals
- Published
2018 silver medallist McNaul has won both her fights in Birmingham
2022 Commonwealth Games |
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Hosts: Birmingham Dates: 28 July to 8 August |
Coverage: Watch live on BBC TV with extra streams on BBC iPlayer, Red Button, BBC Sport website and BBC Sport mobile app; Listen on BBC Radio 5 Live and Sports Extra; live text and clips online. |
Northern Ireland boxers Carly McNaul, Jude Gallagher and Eireann Nugent are guaranteed at least bronze medals at the Commonwealth Games after winning their quarter-final contests.
McNaul, a silver medallist four years ago, beat Sri Lanka's Keshani Hansika by unanimous decision to advance to the light-flyweight semi-finals.
Gallagher defeated Ilyas Hussian of Pakistan in the featherweight division, again by a unanimous verdict.
Nugent triumphed on a split decision.
She was awarded the victory by four of the five ringside judges in her light-middleweight quarter-final, recovering to overcome her English opponent Jodie Wilkinson after unanimously losing the opening round.
Gallagher, 20, dominated his fight.
The Tyrone fighter won each of the three rounds on all five judges' scorecards as he put together an impressive display.
McNaul was the second of nine NI boxers in quarter-final action after minimumweight Nicole Clyde missed out earlier on Wednesday.
Antrim's Clyde was pulled out of the fight by her corner after two difficult rounds against the mightily impressive Nitu Ghanghas of India, who forced two standing counts.
The experienced McNaul soon put Northern Ireland back on the right track with a brilliantly measured display, during which she rarely found herself in trouble as she controlled the range to comfortably win the contest.
Five more Northern Ireland boxers will be in quarter-final action on Thursday.
Round-up of Wednesday action
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland judoka Sarah Hawkes lost her bronze medal contest against New Zealand's Sydnee Andrews.
Hawkes had lost her +78kg quarter-final to Australia's Abigail Paduch but beat Kenya's Dianah Kana in the repechage bout to keep alive her hopes of emulating fellow NI judokas Yasmin Javadian and Nathon Burns' bronze medal wins.
In the pool, Mollie McAlorum finished second in the women's 400m freestyle heat but her time of four minutes 32.31 seconds was not fast enough to progress.
Danielle Hill was seventh in the women's 50m backstroke final in a time of 28.29 seconds.
In table tennis, Owen Cathcart of NI won his opening match in the men's singles, beating Shemar Britton of Guyana 4-0 and then a Bangladeshi opponent to progress to the knockout phase of 32.Zak Wilson was unable to join him after losing 0-4 to Australia's Finn Luu but winning his second match 4-1.
Paul McCreery has won his second group game against a Cypriot opponent and goes into the last 32 of the men's singles competition.
Sophie Earley, representing NI, beat Christy Bristol of the Seychelles 4-0 in her first group game.
Gary Kelly won his singles bowls match on Wednesday, beating Daniel Salmon of Wales 21-12, making it two wins from two to top the group with two games to play.
NI Women's Pair Megan Devlin and Shauna O'Neill beat Scotland 18-12 to go second in their group and will contest the quarter-finals despite losing narrowly 17-16 to Fiji in their final group game.
Mountain biker Cameron Orr finished just outside the medal positions in fourth, with Chris McGlinchy ninth.
Northern Ireland's netball team was humbled 63-26 by Uganda and they have lost all four of their matches to date ahead of their last pool game against Trinidad on Thursday.