By Jack W McCarron
PADDY BARNES EYEING RIO
The World Series of Boxing moves into the ninth week of the season this weekend and things are starting to heat up in terms of qualifying for Rio in 2016.
With only 5 more weeks of action remaining every fight and point is going to count as the Irish involved try and secure their place at the next Olympic games.
On Saturday night Italia Thunder face off against the USA Knockouts in Rome and Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan will be in action for the home team.
Barnes is looking to continue is good run of form as he takes on Denver’s Melik Elliston who recently won gold at the US Nationals and like Barnes is hopeful of qualifying for Rio.
Barnes currently sits in 1st place in the light flyweight category and victory in Rome will seal that ranking for another week.
Barnes was named boxer of the week following his last victory.
CONLAN LOOKING TO BOUNCE BACK
Barnes teammate Michael Conlan will be looking to bounce back from defeat after controversially losing in his last outing two weeks ago.
The Belfast bantam weight fell to fourth in the rankings following that loss making this bout an almost must win encounter if he holds any hopes of qualifying for the Olympics directly from the WSB.
Conlan will take on Francisco Martinez in the second bout of the night and will no doubt be confident he can come out on top.
SUCCESS IN HELSKINKI
The GeeBee Multi Nations tournament got underway on Friday in Helsinki Finland.
Irish trio Adam Nolan (Bray), Kurt Walker (Canal) and Conor Coyle (St Josephs ABC) all came out on top on day 1 of the 34th edition of the tournament.
They join Myles Casey (St Francis), George Bates (St Marys) and Brendan Irvine (St Pauls Antrim) in the semi finals to be decided today.
With 6 boxers in semi finals, Coach Billy Walsh and his team will be hoping to bring home a number of medals.
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