Matthew McCole confirmed on Irish team for World Boxing Championships

Matthew McCole has been confirmed as the Irish light-middleweight entry for the 2025 World Boxing Championships in Liverpool.

The Illies Golden Gloves puncher has been named on a 17-strong Irish team.

In June McCole, who hails from Dungloe, defeated Eugene McKeever at the Girdwood Community Hub in Belfast to win the Irish Elite light-middleweight title.

In doing so, the Illies southpaw became Donegal’s 18th Elite champion, ending a sequence of pain in the championships for him.

McCole took the box seat for the 70kgs ticket to the World Championships and is now counting down to the event, which takes place from September 4-14.

The team includes Paris Olympians Daina Moorehouse (51kg), Jenny Lehane (54kg), Grainne Walsh (65kg), Dean Clancy (65kg) and Jack Marley (90kg), alongside double Olympians Michaela Walsh (57kg) and Aoife O’Rourke (75kg).

Aoife’s sister Lisa (70kg), who won World silver in March alongside her sibling, has also been named.  

McCole and the Irish team will take part in a multi-nations training camp over the last fortnight in August at the GB Boxing headquarters in Sheffield.

National Performance Head Coach, Zaur Antia said: “Our boxers are in a great place - focused, technically and tactically prepared. 

“They know what’s ahead of them and will continue their path building skill and fitness levels over the next seven weeks, as we level-up preparations. 

“It’s an honour to be selected to represent your country, especially so at World level.”

McCole won on his senior international debut in May when he defeated Austria’s Rahman Altamirov in Enniskillen.

McCole, a seven-time Irish champion through his career, stopped Altamirov in the second round.

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In the World University Championships in 2018, McCole - then of Dungloe Boxing Club and Letterkenny Institute of Technology - lost in his 64kgs quarter-final to Alisa Sharifov from Russia.

At the 2022 FISU University World Cup Combat Sports in Turkey, McCole won a bronze medal. He beat Soma Mester from Hungary, but a cut forced his withdrawal from the semi-final.

Donegal’s Jason Quigley won silver at the World Championships in 2013, the Finn Valley ABC man becoming the first Irish male to compete in a World Elite final when he ducked through the ropes in Kazakhstan.

Raphoe BC’s Danny Ryan was at the 1993 World Championships in Finland.

Cathal McMonagle, a native of Letterkenny fighting out of the Holy Trinity BC in Belfast, boxed at the 2007 version in Chicago and William McLaughlin, also of Illies Golden Gloves, ruched the quarter-finals in 2009 in Milan.

McCole’s fellow Dungloe native John Sweeney reached the last 16 of the 2007 Championships, producing a career best performance before losing out to Rakhim Chakhkiev, who later went onto become the IBO cruiserweight champion and European cruiserweight champion in the pro ranks.