By Lisa Johnston, Tour Guide, Belfast City Sightseeing
One of Belfast’s top boxers is aiming for gold!
By day Sean McComb is a team player at Belfast City Sightseeing but by night he’s an elite amateur boxer who spends hours in the ring preparing for the next Olympics.
And Sean, who’s the current Irish Senior Lightweight Champion, is determined to bring home an Olympic medal – as long as it’s gold!
Where in Belfast are you from?
I am from the aforementioned Connsbrook Avenue in east Belfast but we moved from there at the age of 10 to the Stormont area.
Sean, who’s now ranked third in Europe after winning a bronze medal at this year’s European Games in Baku in Azerbaijan, started boxing at the age of eight.
The knock-out boxer is already punching above his weight and so far has chalked up no less than six Irish national titles.
Together with his professional trainers at the Holy Trinity Boxing Club in west Belfast, Sean has devised a gruelling training schedule in preparation for the World Boxing Championships which are being held in Doha in Qatar in October.
The champion boxer has also been hailed a superhero after foiling not one, but two, street thefts in one afternoon while at work in Belfast city centre.
Bosses at Belfast City Sightseeing have nicknamed him Super Sean after he recovered a stolen purse which had been snatched from a woman waiting for a bus near Belfast City Hall.
Sean sprinted into action and pursued the mugger through the city streets before catching up with him and retrieving the purse, complete with cash, before returning it to its rightful owner. He said his training for the Olympic Games meant he was fast enough to out-run the mugger.
Within an hour Sean was in hot pursuit of yet another youth who had run off with a phone after a tourist had asked him to take a photo of him outside the City Hall. Once again Sean sprang into action and chased the youth and eventually recovered the phone for the unsuspecting tourist.
Belfast City Sightseeing Manager Mark Kelly said that Sean was a key member of his street staff team and that everyone in the company was backing Sean’s efforts to bring home gold to the people of Belfast.
Sean said that his lifelong ambition was to win a gold medal at the Olympics after which he would be happy to relinquish his amateur status to become a full-time professional world champion boxer.
Good luck in Qatar, Sean – Belfast City Sightseeing and the people of the city are all behind you as you go for gold!
We can be contacted by email at info@citysightseeingbelfast.com or through our tour office on +44 (0)28 90 321321. We look forward to seeing you soon!
