European junior champion Asenov raised the roof on the Armeec Arena after he emerged victorious following a superb battle with Russian youth champion Pavel Fedorov in the men's flyweight division.

A frenetic opening round went the way of the home boxer and although Fedorov regrouped and came back in the second, Asenov fed off the home support to power his way through the third and take the bout to set up a meeting with Mongolian Battamir Ganbold in the next round.

Another flyweight to impress on the day was Ireland's current junior world champion William Donoghue, who looked in imperious form as he despatched German Dominek Hirsch.

Spaniard Gabriel Escobar, China's Lv Ping, Carlos Silva of Brazil and Muhammed Ali of Britain also secured their safe passage to the next stage of the flyweight division.

Donoghue's teammate Michael Gallagher began his heavyweight campaign with a tough looking outing against Canada's Evagelos Frangos and there was not much to separate both boxers throughout.

Frangos looked superior in the first round but Gallagher dug deep and battled his way through rounds two and three to claim a narrow win.

Britain's Connal McDonald had less trouble against Paul Kovacs of Australia recording a comfortable 3-0 win while American Shakur Stevenson, Artur Kocze of Hungary, Keven Kilindo of the Seychelles and Kyrgyzstan's Abdurakhman Abdurakhmanov were also among the heavyweights on show to advance in similarly comfortable fashion.

The super heavyweights got their campaigns underway and the big hitters were in action straight away with technical knockouts being scored by Hungarian Laszlo Komor, Bosnia and Herzegovina's Daso Simeunovic, Latvian Evanders Servuts and Marat Kerimkhanov of Russia.

Christina Desmond (left) was one of four Irish boxers to claim wins on day four in the Armeec Arena ©AIBA



In the women's competition there was further success for the Irish as Christina Desmond and Ciara Ginty clinched vital wins.

Desmond was particularly impressive as she saw off the challenge of Russian Ekaterina Serova, tipped by many as the favourite for the middleweight gold.

Although Serova finished the bout strongly, the Irishwoman had done enough in the first two rounds to advance to the next stage.

The other middleweight bout saw Martha Fabela of the United States ease passed Vietnam's Luu Diem Quynh.

Ginty occupied the role of public enemy number one in Sofia as she recovered from a shaky start to secure victory over home favourite Nikol Mladenova in the lightweight category.

Other notable wins in the lightweight category came via Nigerian Yetunde Odunuga, Wu Pei-Yi of Chinese Taipei and Sophie Colebourn of Britain.

Colebourn's compatriot Crystal Barker secured her place in the next round of the flyweight competition with a unanimous points win over Koketso Dipogiso of Botswana with Armenia's Anush Grigoryan, Alua Balkibekova of Kazakhstan and Nigerian Mutiat Adebayo all following suit in their respective bouts.

The 2014 AIBA Youth World Boxing Championships are due to continue through until April 24.

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