IRELAND finally hit the medal trail in Beijing on Tuesday -- and once again it was the boxers who did the trick at the Olympic Games. Boxing team captain Kenny Egan and Belfast youngster Paddy Barnes assured themselves of bronze medals at least when they won their respective quarterfinals.

Barnes got the ball rolling with a comfortable 11-5 victory over Poland's Lukasz Maszczyk at light flyweight.

Egan then followed up with a one sided 8-0 win over Brazil's Washington Silva in his light heavyweight quarter-final.

"I have a medal, but now I want THE medal," said the 20-year-old Barnes.

"There is no question of me being satisfied just by getting to the semifinals and having a bronze medal already.

"I've seen the atmosphere here, I know what it means to everyone else and I want to go all the way even if I am fighting China's world champion Shiming Zou on Friday."

Dubliner Egan, six years Barnes' senior, will now meet England's Tony Jeffries in the last four, also on Friday, after Silva failed to damage his good looks.

"I've only conceded four points in three fights and none tonight, that's why I've got the looks I have," laughed Egan before turning his attentions to Jeffries.

"I beat him a couple of months ago at the EU championships when it was stopped in the third after he was cut, so he is the one with the doubts going into this fight," added Egan.

"But that said this is a clean slate and a new fight. I will take it fight by fight and round by round as I have done throughout the Olympics.

"I'm on top of the world right now, I've finally got to where I want to be which is on a podium at the Olympics but we're not done yet."

The Olympic medal guarantee lodged in Egan's account is all the sweeter for him, seeing as he just missed out on Athens four years ago and had to fight all the way until April and Athens to book his Chinese place.

"I never give up, not even when I knew I wasn't going to make Athens," said Egan. "It was tough, the head was down and I went home and cried on my pillow for a day or two but that's sport."

Barnes had to wait until the second round to find his rhythm against Maszczyk, conceding all five points to the Pole in the first two rounds.

"I'm a slow starter, I could be 10-0 down at the end of the first fight and still win it," laughed the boxer from the soccer hotbed of Cliftonville.

"It was probably one of the most nervous fights of my life so I am so glad to get it out of the way and to have won it. It's brilliant, I am over the moon so I am."

Middleweight Darren Sutherland was also due in quarterfinal action on Wednesday, while John Joe Joyce and John Joe Nevin bowed out in the last 16 contests late last week.