Irish Amateur Boxing Association to hold tournament to help selection process for World Elite Championships in Kazakhstan

The Irish Amateur Boxing Association will run a tournament at Dublin’s National Stadium next month to help with their selection process for the AIBA World Elite Men’s Championships in Kazakhstan.

European gold and silver medalists John Joe Nevin, Jason Quigley, Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlan have been selected for the Irish squad for Almaty in October. However, the IABA will hold a tournament across six weight classes on August 16th-17th and 23rd before announcing the 10-man team for Kazakhstan.

London 2012 silver medalist Nevin, and Quigley, claimed gold at June’s European Elite Championships in Belarus and London 2012 bronze medallists Barnes and Conlan won silver. Nevin, who will be aiming for his third successive World Elite medal, will go into the tournament ranked number one in the world at bantamweight.

"We won two medals at the last two World Championships and we'll be looking to improve on that in Kazakhstan later this year, said Irish head coach Billy Walsh. "The squad had a great European Championships and with a bit of luck we could have won more than two gold and two silver medals and finished on top of the medals table."

Meanwhile, the International Boxing Association confirmed yesterday Doha, Qatar, will be the host city for the 2015 World Elite Championships. Whether the tournament will be used as a qualifier for Rio 2016 has yet to be confirmed.