Ireland's interest in the European qualifying tournament in Istanbul was reduced to two yesterday when Martin Murphy from Waterford, Mark Wickham from Wexford and Stephen Reynolds from Sligo were eliminated.

The survivors are Pat O'Donnell from Belfast and Adrian Sheerin from Mayo, both of whom will be in action today.

O'Donnell, the Irish featherweight champion, advanced to the next round of the competition with an impressive 12-3 victory over Sergie Norkiton from Belarus. He will meet the Scot, Alex Arthus this afternoon for a place in the semi-finals. The other Irish survivor, Adrian Sheerin from Swinford, had an even more clear-cut victor in his light heavyweight bout. He beat Anton Hydec from Slovakia on a score of 15-3 and will now meet Dimitri Zboromiar from Slovakia today.

Mark Wickham, who won his first round bout against a Croatian opponent on a clear 7-1 decision on Wednesday, was well beaten 20-4 by Ivan Garton from Moldovia.

There was considerable disappointment in the Irish camp when the super heavyweight champion Stephen Reynolds was beaten 8-8 by Ucis Jaunarajs from Lithuania. He put up a stern show but a public warning for holding in the last round took the steam out of his effort.

There was further disappointment at heavyweight when Michael Roche from Sunnyside shipped some heavy punished and, well behind on the computer scoring system, he was retired in the middle of round five.