Sweeney set for biggest fight of his life

OLYMPIC Boxing Club fighter Gary Sweeney says he has prepared as well as he possibly can ahead of his heavyweight title bout at the National Elite Championships in the National Stadium in Dublin tonight (Friday).

Sweeney and Monkstown fighter Steven Ward will go head-to-head for the heavyweight (91kg) belt, which lies vacant after defending champion Tommy McCarthy turned professional. Sweeney, who is expecting another bruising encounter against Ward, defeated Portlaoise’s Bernard O’Reilly in the semi-final last weekend.

“It was a tough fight but everything went to plan,” says Sweeney. “I am in good shape and I feel good. Training has been going well for the last seven or eight weeks and it is paying off. So, I am happy enough with the way the fight went at the weekend.”

While final opponent Ward was a silver medallist at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi – he had to retire in the first round of the heavyweight final after picking up an injury against England’s Simon Vallily – Sweeney, himself, took silver for Ireland at the 2011 European Youth Championships.

Not turnimng 20 years of age until April, Sweeney was edged out by Russia’s Vladimir Korsunov in that light-heavyweight decider at the Citywest Hotel but that defeat has certainly not impacted negatively on his blossoming career.

Indeed, Sweeney’s route to tonight’s final has been impressive. In the preliminaries he defeated clubmate Patrick Corcoran before accounting for former U-21 and intermediate champion Kenneth Okungbowa (Moate) and O’Reilly in the quarter and semi-finals respectively.

For his part, Ward went straight into the quarter-finals, where he defeated St. Colman’s Patrick O’Shea, before he beat Limerick’s Krys Sikora (St Francis BC) on a unanimous decision last weekend. “He is a tough fighter; he has been around a long time,” says Sweeney of his Antrim opponent.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.