Cassidy’s Olympic dream ends in Bangkok 

There was heartbreak, this morning, for Kelyn Cassidy and all involved in St. Saviour’s Crystal Boxing Club and Waterford boxing circles as defeat in Bangkok saw his dream of representing Ireland at this year’s Paris Olympics shattered.

Kelyn came into this fight on the back of two excellent wins, against Delil Dadaev of Germany and India's Abhimanyu Loura in the 80kg (Light Heavyweight) division.

However, the Ballybeg man’s journey ended as he was beaten on a 3-2 split decision by Gazimagomed Schami Gafruova Jalidov of Spain in the round of 16.

The Spaniard was unanimously awarded the opening round, before taking the second on a split decision.

The Saviour’s Crystal man threw everything at it in the final round but it is Jalidov who advanced to the medal fight.

This latest heartbreaking defeat in his dream to make Paris comes after he suffered really narrow defeats to top class fighters, Ukraine’s Oleksandr Khysniak (an Olympic silver medalist, world champion and multiple European champion) at the European Games and Nurbek Oralbay of Kazakhstan in March in the second qualifier.

Unfortunately this was the Ballybeg man’s last chance saloon to make the Paris Olympics and he had made no secret of the fact of it being his dream to represent Waterford and Ireland and the great games.

Kelyn will be 30 by the end of the next Olympic cycle and focus will soon turn to his plans for the future. Irish-boxing.com is reporting that there is strong pro interest in a boxer who has made a brilliant rise up through the national and international ranks in recent years. We’ll watch this space…