McDonagh returns home with European Youth bronze

NEILSTOWN Boxing Club’s Winnie Christina McDonagh was one of eight Irish boxers who returned home from this week’s European Youth Championships in Bulgaria with a medal.

After seeing off the challenge of Ukraine’s Yulia Filpova, the Clondalkin woman then lost out to Valentina Marra of Italy in the light welterweight semi finals and so emerged from the competition with bronze.

Given that this was her first major international in some two years, McDonagh was happy with her performance, especially with her win over Filpova coming in somewhat controversial circumstances.

Despite an impressive display, McDonagh was adjudged to have lost the fight, something she and her team very much disputed.

“I definitely knew I had won the second and third rounds in that fight, and my coaches knew it too, so we appealed it, and we heard back that night that we got the decision overturned” she explained.

The distraction, however, was the last thing McDonagh needed as she tried to focus on the possibility of taking on two-time European champion, Marra in the last four.

Winnie with her parents in Clondalkin (Image: Paddy Barrett) 

In the end, Marra emerged a convincing winner, although McDonagh was quick to draw on the positives of her experience in Sofia.

“I was very happy with my performance especially considering it was my first international tournament in two years, my first Europeans” she told The Echo.

“It was also my first time to box three three-minute rounds and I felt good” she added.

Making the podium in Bulgaria was a feat made all the more remarkable by the fact that McDonagh really only had two-and-a-half week’s preparation as a result of an untimely injury in training that saw her tear muscles in both her neck and shoulder.

The residual effects of those injuries were still being felt by the Dubliner as she headed into the Europeans, but she battled superbly to finish among the medals.

A European Schoolgirl gold medallist and European Junior silver medallist, McDonagh will next turn her attention to November’s National Under 18 Championships, which will also offer a route through to World Championship competition.