Kellie Harrington cruised to victory in the Round of 32 at the European Games as she eyes up a spot at next year's Olympics.
Taking on Slovakia's Miroslava Jedinakova, the Dubliner looked sharp in round one. Harrington's opponent acted as the aggressor early on but the Olympic champion showed slick movement to keep herself out of harm's way.
And mid-way through the first, Harrington hit a slick combo that impressed judges and was up on all five of the scorecards.
Harrington continued her fine form in the second and landed a big right hook as her Slovakian opponent went forward and overall looked the slicker of the pair as she continued to grow into the fight and found herself up on four of the five scorecards going into the final round.
Needing to avoid catastrophe in the final round, Harrington was happy to keep herself at a distance but did get tagged by a couple of heavy blows early on.
The Portland Row native would not have it her own way to finish with her Slovakian opponent going for the jugular but Harrington did enough to hang on and earn safe passage to the round of 16 and was scored 30-27 winner from four of five judges..
The Olympic gold medal winner must advance to the quarter-finals if she is to secure her place at next year's games in Paris.
Fellow Irish boxer Dean Clancy will fight at 1 pm while Jude Gallagher is in action at 12.45 pm.
