Boxing:Paddy Barnes and Darren O'Neill are guaranteed at least a silver medal at the European Amateur Championships they progressed to the light-flyweight final (48kg) middleweight (75kg) in Moscow.
However, Ken Egan, Tyrone McCullagh and Eric Donovan will have to settle for bronze after they bowed out at the semi-final stage.
Belfast’s Barnes was first to progress this morning, when he proved too strong for Spain's José de la Nieve Linares, opening a 4-1 lead midway through the second round and holding that advantage to finish 6-3 after the third and final round.
Barnes, a bronze medalist at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, will meet Elvin Mamishzade of Azerbaijan in the final. The two are no stangers having previously sparred at training camps in the past.
O’Neill booked his place in the final with a comfortable 6-0 win over Bulgaria's Mladen Manev.
The Kilkenny boxer was in command from the off, using his height and reach advantage to pick of his opponent and score two points in each round for a convincing win.
Egan, Ireland’s Olympic silver medallist, raced into an early lead against light-heavyweight Abdel Boukenia but it was the Frenchman who triumphed 11-9 in a repeat of his shock win in the 2009 World Championships quarter-finals in Milan.
Egan was in control in the early exchanges, landing a flurry of blows to take a 4-1 lead but the contest was unnervingly open and Boukenia fought back late in the first to trail 7-4 by the bell.
He took the second round 3-1 thanks to couple of heavy blows, one of which rocked Egan.
With a one-point lead going into the last, and the momentum in favour of the Frenchman, Egan looked troubled and Boukenia landed an early blow to level the bout.
He caught Egan again to take the lead and landed two more blows before retreating in defence and proving an awkward target that Egan failed to hit in the dying seconds.
McCullagh held his own over the opening two rounds in his contest with Iain Weaver before the English featherweight exerted his authority in the third, piling on the points to win 10-3.
And Donovan was well beaten by Russia’s Eric Selimov, the 2007 world champion coming through the contest 8-2.