Another sports star award for Moate's Joe Ward

Boxer Joe Ward is the Westmeath Independent Sportstar award winner for May, in recognition of his phenomenal achievement of winning the World Youth Championship in Azerbaijan in May. The then 16-year-old, from Farnagh, defeated Australia's Damien Hooper in the middle-weight final to take Ireland's only gold medal from the World Youth Championships. Ward was 21 months younger than Hooper and fifteen months younger than a talented Cuban he defeated in an earlier round. Ward defeated boxers from Albania, Cuba, Russian and Colombia on his way to the final. His victory meant he added the AIBA World Youth Championship middleweight title to his AIBA World Junior light-middleweight crown won in May 2009 in Armenia. Later in the year, Ward went out in the first round of the Youth Olympics in Singapore to Hooper, having broken a bone in his hand during the fight. Speaking to the Westmeath Independent this week, Ward said his immediate target was the Irish Senior Boxing Championships due in February of next year. It will be the first time Ward will fight at senior ranks, as he graduates from a massively successful junior career. The national championships are crucial as they provide an entry point to the World Senior Championships late in 2011, which are the main qualifiers for the London Olympics in 2012. To qualify for the World Senior Championships, Ward must be crowned national champion. He is expecting to fight at the light heavyweight division, where he will come up against ten-time national champion Kenny Egan. Despite the difficult task ahead, Ward is hopeful. "He's going for his eleventh title and hopefully I'll be able to stop him." At the moment, Ward is still recovering from his hand injury and expects to step back into the ring for training in four to five weeks.