Jon McConnell Aims for European Glory After Commonwealth Success

Jon McConnell watched Kate O'Connor turn one golden summer into two and decided he wanted a piece of that feeling.

O'Connor, the heptathlon star, stood on top of the podium at the Commonwealth Games in July, then carried that form straight into Europe, striking gold again in Birmingham weeks later. From Belfast, from another corner of Northern Irish sport, McConnell saw a blueprint.

He had his own moment in Glasgow, ripping through the 70kg field to claim Team NI's only boxing gold at the Commonwealths. At 23, it was the breakthrough he had chased since childhood. It has not, he insists, scratched the itch. It has sharpened it.

"She is a big inspiration, winning the Commonwealths, had a week off and was back over in Birmingham to win [European] gold - hopefully I can replicate that," McConnell told BBC Sport NI before boarding for Bulgaria.

The next stop is Sofia. The European Elite Championships begin on Thursday, and McConnell goes there not as a plucky outsider but as a man who has felt the weight of a major medal around his neck and wants that buzz again.

"I'm on the right road," he said. "The Commonwealths was a goal for me since I was a kid. It's given me a taste for more and the only way to get that buzz is to go out and win major championships."

He travels as part of a 14-strong Team Ireland squad, a group that has already had to absorb one significant change. At women's lightweight, Kellie McLoughlin steps in after two-time Olympic champion Kellie Harrington withdrew with a hand injury. The names may shift, the opportunity does not.

European medals matter in their own right. They always have. But this tournament also carries a different kind of weight: a chance to measure themselves against the men and women they will likely see again when the road to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles opens up next year at the World Championships and European Games.

"It's going to be the same people you are boxing," McConnell noted. The faces, the styles, the rivalries – they all start here.

He keeps his language simple, his focus narrower than the Olympic rings he talks about.

"I take one fight and round at a time, but there is no reason why I can't be top of the podium as LA is my main goal.

"I'm national elite champion two years in a row, so if I can make that three in January, I should go to the qualifiers next year, but these European Championships I want to put a marker down."

Ireland's recent record shows where the strength has come from. At the last European Championships in 2024 in Serbia, the team brought home two golds and two bronzes – every one of them won by women. Among them were current squad members Shannon Sweeney, who took 50kg gold and now competes at 48kg, and 75kg champion Aoife O'Rourke.

Go back two years to Yerevan and there were major male results too: Gabriel Dossen on the top step with gold, Dylan Eagleson with silver. Yet on the world stage the wait has stretched. It is nine years since Ireland's men last climbed a World Championships podium – Joe Ward taking silver, Michael Conlan securing the only world gold ever won by an Irish male boxer.

That gap hangs over this new generation, but inside the camp there is a sense that the dam is straining.

Current interim head coach Damian Kennedy has watched this group since the turn of the year and likes what he sees.

"Dean Clancy is going three fights deep into competitions on a regular basis, Jude Gallagher is going deep on a regular basis, Jack Marley is boxing the best I've ever seen him," Kennedy said.

He knows medals will be the headline measure. He also knows they are not the only one.

"Sometimes success is measured in medals but that's not always the case as I've seen the progression here.

There are a number of athletes about to tip over the edge and when the floodgates open for the males, it will be amazing to watch."

McConnell wants to be standing there when it happens – not watching from the crowd, but under the lights, on the podium, with another summer turned into something bigger. The road to Los Angeles is still long, but in Sofia this week, reputations can start to harden and a new Irish standard-bearer can announce himself.