HE CAN BARELY believe it that 12 years have passed, but Steven O’Reilly’s scrapbook means the memories will never completely fade.
In the summer of 2004, O’Reilly created history when he became the first boxer from Donegal to win a European gold medal.
Jason Quigley followed suit in the European Youth Championships in 2009 and Brett McGinty, already a bronze medallist from the European Schoolboy Championships in 2012, this week aims to add his name to the golden roster.
Finn Valley’s Quigley won three European golds, triumphing at senior, under-23 and youth level, while the likes of William McLaughlin (Illies), Tyrone McCullagh (Illies), Leon Gallagher (Finn Valley) and Maeve McCarron (Carrigart) have all brought various forms of European nuggets back to Donegal.
It was in Budapest in 2004 that Twin Towns BC’s O’Reilly topped the podium, claiming gold in that year’s European Schoolboy Championships.
[adrotate group=”57″]“Being the first Donegal boxer to win the European championships is definitely something that I am proud of,” he says now, flicking through those pages.
“There were and are so many talented boxers in Donegal so to make that break through was a very proud moment.”
O’Reilly had won a Four Nations tournament a month before he flew out to Hungary.
He stopped Hungarian Adam Darmos in his quarter-final before overcoming Austrian Marco Nadir 23-18 in the semi-final.
The then 14-year-old O’Reilly, a student at the time at St Columba’s College Stranorlar, was up against Ukraine’s Yevgeniy Ustymenko in the final.
[adrotate group=”52″]Things took something of a twist in the build-up to what was an already-challenging assignment.
O’Reilly recalls: “The Ukrainian that I boxed in the final had stopped his opponent in the first round of his quarter and semi final so we didn’t have much tape to watch him.
“The morning of the final I was struggling with weight and had to train for 1hr before the weight-in to make the weight. Then it was just a matter of refuelling and resting to the fight.”
[adrotate group=”67″]Mong those in the crowd were his father, Terry, and his cousin, Fergal Marley. They were joined by Ballybofey man Tommy Bonner, who arrived from another part of Hungary for the final.
Through gritted teeth, O’Reilly won the final 15-10.
“To win the final was unbelievable, at the time I didn’t realise the magnitude of it because it was all about taking one fight at a time,” he says now.
“The tournament itself feels like a flash looking back now, even know we were just taking one fight at a time it was always hard not to look ahead to see who you could meet.”
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