It was an evening to savour for Irish amateur boxing as Amy Broadhurst and Lisa O'Rourke both collected gold at the IBA Women's World Boxing Championships in Istanbul.
Broadhurst and O'Rourke fought fearlessly in the light welterweight and light middleweight categories respectively, and neither ever looked like letting the gold medal out of their sights.
The two gold medals represent a huge milestone in Irish amateur boxing; prior to this evening, only Katie Taylor and Kellie Harrington had won titles at World Championships.
Those wins for Taylor and Harrington came 12 years apart, with the Bray boxer first claiming a World Championship title in 2006 and Harrington achieving the same feat in 2018.
As Broadhurst and O'Rourke fought back-to-back, they created their own miniscule gap of roughly half an hour between World titles.
Facing Imane Khelif of Algeria, Broadhurst rarely looked troubled as she dominated all three rounds.
Aside from a short-lived burst at the beginning of the second round, Khelif struggled as Broadhurst registered brilliant combinations and protected herself from the Algerian's peppering of body shots.
By the final round, Broadhurst had the buoyancy of a comprehensive lead from the judges and she saw out the remainder of the bout in a controlled and disciplined fashion to claim gold on a 5-0 scoreline from the judges.
The very next fight on the card was the meeting of O'Rourke and Alcinda Panguana of Mozambique.
The chance to collect two gold medals in the space of half an hour had presented itself following Broadhurst's heroics, and O'Rourke duly obliged as she emerged with aggression to take the fight to Panguana from the outset.
Claiming the first round on a 3-2 scoreline from the judges, O'Rourke looked to carry the momentum into the second but Panguana did impart some solid body shots as she acclimatised to the pace set by the former.
The judges favoured the Mozambique fighter in the second which came as a surprise and set up a tense final round where O'Rourke suddenly had a point to prove.
And prove it she did, with a powerful right hand in the opening seconds crushing Panguana's spirit.
Both fighters led with some erratic swings midway through the third, but O'Rourke's right hand steadied the ship as the fight neared its end and she dealt enough damage to claim a 4-1 win on points.
Previous Irish Amateur World Champions
2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 - Katie Taylor
2015 - Michael Conlan
2018 - Kellie Harrington
2022 - Amy Broadhurst 2022 - Lisa O’Rourke
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