End of the line for battling Maguire

DESPITE a huge effort, Esker Boxing Club’s, Luke Maguire saw his run in the EUBC Elite European Men’s Boxing Championship in Yerevan draw to a close following a narrow 3-2 split defeat at the hands of Georgia’s Eskerkhan Madiev.

The Ireland light middleweight boxer was hoping to build on his unanimous 5-0 victory over Poland’s Daniel Wieslaw Piotrowski in his preliminary bout on Tuesday, but fell just short of a place in the last eight of the tournament when he came up against the Number Three seed.

Maguire is the second boxer from Esker to compete on the European stage this year with Nathan Ojo having travelled with the Ireland Under 18 squad to Bulgaria last month.

His exit was one of three defeats carded by Irish boxers at the Europeans yesterday with welterweight, Eugene McKeever losing out to second seed, Vakid Abbasov from Serbia.

Heavyweight, Jack Marley, also bowed out after he sustained a cut to his right eye during his bout with Greece’s Vagkan Nanitzanian after which he lost when the decision went to the scorecards.