And this afternoon, Irish skipper Egan, from the Neilstown club in Dublin, got his light heavyweight campaign up and running with a third-round twenty-point rule (23-3) stoppage of Armenian Myasnik Sargsyan.

Bantamweights, featherweights, welterweights and middleweights can secure Olympic qualification by reaching their respective finals or by reaching the semi-finals and winning a box-off with the other beaten semi-finalists.

Boxers in all other weight categories must reach their respective finals to book their tickets for the Beijing Olympics.

Fifty-one places are still up for grabs for European boxers for next summer's Olympics in Beijing.

Twenty-six of those places will be distributed in Pescara this weekend with the balance to be disputed at the final Olympic qualifier for European boxers which begins in Athens on April 7.