IRELAND’S sister act is back in the habit of winning — as Aoife and Lisa O’Rourke swept into the World Championship finals in Serbia.
The women’s squad suffered a painful start to their campaign in Nis, with their first six boxers in action all posting losses.
But the Roscommon siblings had other ideas.
After getting Ireland on the board on Thursday, both boxers faced tricky semi-finals on Friday — and blazed through them.
Middleweight Aoife, 27, was first up, taking on home fighter Nikolina Gajic of Serbia. The double Olmpian took all three rounds in a power-packed display.
Aoife, with four Euro senior golds to her name, had secured her first world medal with victory over Aziza Zokirova of Uzbekistan and now has at least silver here.
Lisa, meanwhile, is going all-out for her second title. The light-middle, 22, champ in Istanbul alongside Amy Broadhurst in 2022, lost yesterday’s opening round on all five judges’ cards to Natalia Bogdanova of Kazakhstan.
But she battled back with a big second round, punishing her opponent with stinging right hands.
Mystifyingly, only three of the five judges awarded her the round, and it meant she had to go on the attack again in the last.
That she did, again getting the better of Bogdanova to triumph after a bout review, which is automatically activated when there is a 3-2 split either way.
According to IBA, gold medal winners bag $100,000 with $50,000 on offer for silver.
The duo will face Russian rivals as they go for gold in tomorrow’s finals, with Aoife meeting Anastasia Shamonova and Lisa eyeing Elena Gapeshina.
