Ollie O’Neill says that his son Darren will have to win the tournament for the final Olympic Qualifier in Baku, Azerbaijan soon if he is to qualify for the Summer Olympics.
Darren missed out on a place in Rio at the European Olympic Qualifiers in Turkey in April where he was beaten on a split decision by his Azerbaijani opponent.
Speaking to KCLR on yesterday’s “The way it is”, Ollie says that even though it will be a tall order for Darren, he is preparing well.
“Yeah Darren will be heading out on the 2nd (June) out to Baku to do a training camp along with the other boys that have qualified already for the Olympics, and then I think the boxing starts around the 12th or 14th for the last qualifiers”
“Its going to be hard for Darren, he’ll have to win five fights in a row I think to get to qualify but you know I think hes in with a chance as well.
He’s confident enough but he’s training hard, we done a good training session yesterday at home and he went back to Dublin yesterday evening, and hes coming back again to train at home tonight and hes training again in the morning up in the high performance in Dublin”
“So hes putting the work in anyway, we’ll need a bit of luck now”
Katie Taylor qualified for her second successive Olympics and secured at least a second bronze medal for Ireland at the AIBA World Women’s Elite Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan on Tuesday.
Team Ireland now have 7 boxers qualified for the upcoming Rio Olympic Games which is a record total from when the current qualification system was first introduced for Barcelona in 1992.
