PETER O’Donnell has been named as the team manager of the Irish senior boxing team for next month’s European Elite Senior Championships.
The Raphoe ABC stalwart received confirmation of his selection on Thursday morning via a phonecall from the IABA registrar, Stephen Connolly.
O’Donnell, who is the President and PRO of the Donegal Boxing Board, has filled the manager’s slot on a number of previous occasions.
Most recently, he was manager of the Elite Senior squad for the Gee Bee Multi Nations Tournament in Helsinki back in March.
That squad returned six medals with Adam Nolan and Brendan Irvine scooping gold medals, while there were silvers for Connor Coyle and Myles Casey and bronze medals were hung around the necks of Kurt Walker and George Bates.
For O’Donnell, managing the Irish seniors for the European Elite Championships represents the biggest honour of a lifelong career involved in the sweet science.
“It’s a massive honour to get a phonecall like that to manage the Irish team for such a big championship,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to the trip. It’s always brilliant to go away as the Ireland team manager.
“Ireland has had a great record of winning medals at tournaments over the last few years. There’ll be a strong team going out with most of them this year’s Irish champions so hopefully we’ll bring back a couple of medals.”
Olympians Michael Conlan, Adam Nolan and Darren O’Neill will be among the boxers included on the Irish team that will travel in the company of IABA Head Coach Billy Walsh and Technical Coach Zaur Antia.
O’Donnell is a strong supporter of all strands of Donegal’s boxing community and has been ringside at several of Jason Quigley’s professional fights in America.
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