BRETT MCGINTY is through to the last 32 of the World Youth Championships after a comfortable win over Thailand’s Kiattisak Promchuay.
The St Johnston man stopped Promchuay in the third round of their welterweight opener at the Sibur Arena in St Petersburg.
Promchuay was given two counts in the second round. Examined by the ringside medic before the start of the third stanza, Promchuay was given the green light to continue.
But McGinty smelled blood by then and the Oakleaf ABC ace soon finished the job.
[adrotate group=”38″]McGinty boxed on the front foot from the first bell and was in command of the bout from the start to its early finish.
A tight defence didn’t let Promchuay through and McGinty’s ferocious power with his back hand shots had the Thai boxer in all sorts of difficulty.
For McGinty, this was an impressive victory on the world stage.
Following some recent controversity, including the furore at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, the AIBA have decided to use the scores from all five ringside judges at the World Youths.
[adrotate group=”85″]Previously, five judges scored bouts, with only three were used to determine a winner.
McGinty took the decision out of the hands of those at ringside with an emphatic display tha tees up a meeting with Andrej Csemez from Slovakia, a bronze medal winner at this year’s European Youth Championships, in the round of 32 on Sunday evening.
This is McGinty’s first time at a World Championships, but he’s no stranger to big days in the Irish vest.
In 2012, McGinty won a bronze medal at the European Schoolboy Championships and brought a silver medal home from Samoa at the 2015 Commonwealth Youth Games.
He captained Northern Ireland at those Commonwealths and also led Ireland to this year’s European Youth Championships, where he was beaten by Armenia’s Gurgen Madoyan.
Since returning from Anapa, McGinty has upped the ante and defeated Paul Ryan from Bay City to win an eighth Irish title in August, a triumph that sealed his place on the plane to St Petersburg.
John Conlan and Billy McClean, the Irish coaches for these championships, had their boxers in intensive training camps in Dublin and Belfast before they went to a ten-day camp in Moscow, from where they traveled to St Petersbug on Monday of this week.
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