KURT Walker got his Olympic campaign off to a fine start as the Lisburn featherweight produced a strong finish to account for Spain's Jose Quiles Brotons in the preliminary round this morning.
The Canal man swept the cards 5-0 (30-27, 28-27 x4) to march into a last 16 bout against top seed Mirazizbek Mirzakhalilov on Wednesday and will enter that bout with confidence after doing enough to win against the Spaniard.
Walker did end up with a cut in what proved to be an untidy final round having clearly won the first, but shipped the second, yet overcame the adversity to take a deserved step forward.
The Lisburn man was quickly into his groove in the first as he glided around the ring and was simply too quick and slick for Brotons as he found his range.
Brotons did land a couple late in the opener and upped his game in the second, finding the jaw of Walker several times with crunching rights, but is was far from one-way traffic as the Irishman enjoyed his own success, but not enough on four of the five cards.
It was all to play for in the final round and Brotons had clearly decided momentum was his, but his wild lunges were punished by Walker who seemed to revert to his classy type and invited the lead before sinking a right counter home.
The Spaniard was going for broke, but was susceptible to the cleaner and crisper work of Walker who advances into an acid test.
The cut is far from ideal, but doesn't appear to be disastrous and with four days to prepare after a confidence-boosting win, will relish the challenge ahead.
"I'm so happy to be here, and so happy to get the win," he told RTE after.
"I’m feeling grateful. I was listening to the coaches and I knew I was going to win. It just went off a bit in the second round but that’s normal in the first fight, it’s good to have that type of thing behind me."
