World bronze medalist, Patsy Joyce, has been nominated for the RTE Young Sports
2025 is the first year in which the 19 year old Olympic BC Mullingar man is eligible to compete at Elite international level – after 11 national titles and 9 months in High Performance training he burst on to the global stage winning Ireland’s first men’s benchmark medal in 8 years at the World Boxing Championships. The last to do it was his cousin, Joe, in 2017 in the World Championships in Hamburg. Patsy, aside from being among the youngest members of Team Ireland at the World Boxing Championships, was one of the youngest boxers his weight category.
He slayed giants and built his reputation and that of Irish boxing in each of his bouts: His first win was over Jaeyong Shin of Korea. In his second win, Patsy took on second over Cuban-born Bulgarian Olympian and World and European medalist, Javier Ibanez Diaz, a skilled and experienced operator 10 years his senior. For his quarter final, he was the victor over Uzbekistan’s Mirazizbek Mirzakhalilov – an Asian champion and World Boxing Cup medalist, a veteran 11 years his senior. In his semi-final, Patsy came agonizingly close to silver. He contested against Spain’s Rafael Serrano Lozano, a Paris Olympian, in an incredibly close bout, in skill and score, losing out on the narrowest of margins, a 3-2 split
Patsy is among 6 nominees, including Alex Dunne, the first Irish driver to win an F2 race, winning in Bahrain and Italy, Conor Kelly crowned best Under-20 400 metres runner in Europe by winning gold at the European Athletics U20 Championships, John Short gold medallist in the 200m backstroke at the European Short-Course Championships and double gold at the World Junior Championships in both the 100m and 200m backstroke, Michael Noonan – youngest ever scorer of a UEFA Conference League goal, finding the net for Shamrock Rovers v Molde at the age of 16, Roisin Ni Rian who won a hat-trick of silver medal at the World Para Swimming Championships plus two further bronze medals and Sean Butterly winner of a gold medal in the Junior Men’s K1 at the ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships in Hungary.
This Saturday at 8.05pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player, Joanne Cantwell, Darragh Maloney and David Gillick will present the RTÉ Sport Awards 2025 from Studio 4 in RTÉ.