Boxing: Featherweight Carl Frampton bridged a 60-year gap to create Irish boxing history last night with a clinical victory over the Latvian Denis Zabins in the quarter-final of the European Union Championships at the National Stadium in Dublin.

The win guarantees Frampton at least bronze, the first senior medal an Irish boxer has won in European competition in Dublin since 1947.

But lightweight Eric Donovan and his St Michael's Athy team-mate John Joe Joyce both lost quarter-final bouts last evening.

Joyce put in a stunning effort against the two-times European champion Gyula Kate, but the Hungarian hung on to edge the decision by three points.

Donovan was stopped on the 20-point rule by the world and European bronze medallist Domenico Valentino of Italy.

Frampton, from the Midlands White City club in Belfast, stopped Zabins on the 20-point rule (22-2) in the second round and will meet the Polish southpaw Michel Chudecki in tomorrow's semi-final.

The 2005 Irish senior champion reckoned it was the best he had ever boxed: "I felt very strong in there and when I hit him I could see he was backing off so I kept stepping inside and the tactics worked, and I am now looking forward to the semi-finals."

There was treble disappointment earlier yesterday when Ryan Lindberg, Conor Ahern and Paddy Barnes all bowed out at the quarter-final stage.

The Immaculata Belfast bantamweight Lindberg was always behind against the Slovakian Rudolph Dydi.

Ahern, from the Baldoyle club, was beaten by the defending flyweight champion, Salim Salimov of Bulgaria. And the Holy Trinity Belfast light-flyweight Barnes retired with an eye injury when his opponent, Nordine Ouballi of France, was 11-3 ahead.