National Elite Championships 2015

London 2012 Olympian Adam Nolan won't be taking his eye off the ball at the 2015 National Elite Championships.The former Irish Elite champion wants to represent Ireland at the inaugural European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan this summer.However, the Bray BC southpaw believes that if he doesn't perform at the National Stadium over the next three weekends he can kiss goodbye to the European Games and the AIBA World Elite Men's Championships in Doha, Qatar later this year.

The Wexford-born leftie weighed-in for the Elite Championships on the button at 69kg this morning and reckons that the welterweight class is packed with talent. He said: "You have boxers of the class of John Joe Joyce there and Michael Nevin. Michael reached an Elite final last year and has bumped up to welterweight. Bernard Roe has won a lot of underage titles and Wayne Kelly an U/22 belt.

"You need to perform to beat any of them. There's good lads at this weight. I was just talking to Larry Morrison and he told me there's eight in the weight, so we will be in action this weekend.I'm feeling good and my pre training went well."Obviously, I'd love to compete at the European Games and we have the World Championships after that, but you can't take your eye off the ball at the Elite Championships. If you don't perform at Elite Championships then you won't be on the Irish team. It's a must win tournament."

The tournament begins this evening at the National Stadium at 7pm and resumes next weekend. Sixteen bouts will be decided tonight. The draw will be published here on www.iaba.ie early this afternoon. The 2015 Championships will be decided over the next three weekends. Ticket prices for tonight - €10 for adults and €5 for children.