International debutant Louis Rooney and Patsy Joyce added to Ireland’s pot of gold at the European Under-22 Championships in Sofia.
After Lisa O’Rourke topped the charts on Saturday, Rooney and Joyce went to the top of the podium on Sunday.
Rooney, from the Star ABC in Belfast, took the light-flyweight gold with Joyce blasting his way to an impressive gold at bantamweight.
In only his third ever international bout, Rooney overcame Azerbaijan’s Tural Sariyev in the 48kgs decider.
Rooney, a son of former Belfast boxing star Jimbo Rooney, made his international debut in his quarter-final win over Hovhannes Harutunyan of Armenia before putting Csaba Zsigo of Hungary to the sword.
Rooney bossed the opening two rounds before Sariyev came on strong to take the third.
As he went back to the blue corner, Rooney’s joyous punch of the corner post told it all and a 4-1 split decision confirmed the gold for the Irishman.
Joyce defeated Aaron Cullen from Scotland in the 54kgs final.
The Mullingar man could feel aggrieved that his victory came on a 4-1 split decision, a Croatian judge giving the bout to Cullen 29-28 when his four peers were firmly, 30-27, the way of Joyce..
The 2022 European Youth bronze medallist shot to the podium when beating Estonia’s Allan Morozov before seeing off Dymtro Kolisnichenko from Ukraine to upgrade the colour.
In the final, Joyce never looked in danger as he deservedly took the initiative and the victory against Cullen.
On Saturday, O’Rourke retained her light-middleweight crown as the Castlerea ace overpowered Darya Letsko in the 70kgs final.
The 2022 World Championship gold medallist left no doubt as to the victor.
O’Rourke missed out on a place at the Olympic Games this year with the IABA giving Grainne Walsh the ticket to Paris at welterweight.
O’Rourke took a firm hold of the bout from the outset and Letsko had no match for the bunches of punches raining in from the Roscommon woman.
In the final minute of the third round, O’Rourke landed a big right on Letsko just to confirm what was already inevitable.
Having had some injury troubles, O’Rourke earned a clean sweep from the judges to take gold in style.
Carleigh Irving took silver and Robyn Kelly, Clepson dos Santos, Bobbi Flood and Martin McDonagh bagged bronze.
