Two silver medals as well as $50,000 (€46,000) each in prize money will make their way back to Roscommon following Lisa and Aoife O’Rourke’s end to the World Boxing Championships in Nis, Serbia.
Gold medals evaded both sisters in the end, the younger 22-year-old Lisa first and then 27-year-old Aoife, who had to step into the ring immediately after her younger sibling’s defeat. It was also boxing history as sisters had never made it through to finals night before at world level.
Lisa, who won the gold medal at the 2022 World Championships in the 70kg division, was beaten by Russia’s Elena Gapeshina by unanimous decision in the first of the evening bouts, again at light middleweight.
Tall and rangy against a smaller sturdy Russian, O’Rourke opened her bout fighting from a distance and comfortably working off the back foot.
Although she landed some nice right hands and a combination in the opening three minutes, Gapeshina stayed composed and compact and always came forward. The judges saw her as the dominant boxer in the opening round with all five scoring it 10-9 in Russia’s favour for 5-0.
That was repeated in the second round, O’Rourke never taking a step back but many of her shots whizzing past her Russian opponent and not scoring. A right upper cut at the end of the round from Gapeshina would have caught the eye of the judges and again they scored the second round the same as the first, 5-0 for the Russian boxer.
There was no way back for the gutsy O’Rourke, who again fired everything she had at her opponent in the final round. But it was not enough to turn the fight with the bout awarded to the 27-year-old Russian by unanimous decision.
Three-time European middleweight champion Aoife then stepped into the ring just as her sister was leaving the arena and faced an opponent, Anastasiia Shamonova, who she had beaten in the 2024 European final. The two knew each other well and that showed as the bout took off at a furious pace.
O’Rourke was landing with jabs and back hands, but so was Shamonova. There were a few tangles in the first round but the judges sided with some cleaner shots to mark it 4-1 for Russia.
There was little in it with O’Rourke taking her high-tempo game to her opponent with even more aggression in the second round. But an early jab and a cross from the Russian indicated that she was opting for a less is more approach and with the cleaner shots and effective back hand.
While O’Rourke was flooding the zone with punches and kept the tempo high and lively, it was Shamonova the judges scored higher. Although the second round was split again, it was 4-1 for the Russian fighter.
It wasn’t as much as an uphill battle in the third as it had been for her sister just minutes before, but it was a big ask for O’Rourke to turn the final. Again, no quarter was given but every raid from the Irish boxer was countered by the Russian. Although O’Rourke landed some stiff scoring jabs and was unrelenting in her go-forward mindset, Shamanova remained composed under the pressure and was able to land scoring shots with the judges again siding with her with a points decision.
It was disappointment on the night, two defeats within 30 minutes for Ireland but a fantastic showing by the sisters from Tarmon and another expression of how Ireland can consistently compete at the highest levels of the sport. In all 239 boxers from 51 federations competed in the championships, with the O’Rourke sisters making it through to the last day from an Irish team of eight athletes.
