ST JOSEPH’S boxer Joe Cordina begins his quest to qualify for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games tomorrow.

The 23-year-old, who won lightweight bronze for Wales at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, has now set his sights on a medal for Team GB in Brazil.

Cordina and seven other members of the GB Boxing squad have their first opportunity to qualify for Rio at the AIBA World Boxing Championships in Doha this week.

The tournament, which runs until October 15, is the first of four qualification events for male boxers for Rio.

Cordina competes alongside England’s Harvey Horn, Muhammad Ali, Qais Ashfaq, Pat McCormack, Joshua Kelly, Joshua Buatsi and Joe Joyce.

All eight earned the right to compete at the World Championships by virtue of their performances at the 2015 European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, and the 2015 European Championships in Samakov, Bulgaria.

Joyce and Kelly won gold and bronze respectively in Baku.

The remaining six boxers were part of the best ever performance by a team from Great Britain at the European Championships when they returned from Bulgaria with six medals including gold for Cordina, silvers for Horn, Ali, Ashfaq and McCormack and a bronze for Buatsi.

A total of 23 qualification places for Rio are available at the Doha World Championships across the 10 men’s weight categories.

Two boxers each qualify at light-flyweight (49kg), flyweight (52kg) and light-heavyweight (81kg); three at each of bantamweight (56kg), lightweight (60kg), light-welterweight (64kg), welterweight (69kg) and middleweight (75kg).

At heavyweight and super-heavyweight only the winner of the competition will qualify for Rio from this event.

Three more Olympic qualification events will be held in April, May and June next year when a further 95 places will be up for grabs across the 10 men’s weight categories.

Cardiff-born boxer Cordina, who trains at St Joes in Newport with Tony Borg, competes again at lightweight (60kg) and he starts tomorrow evening against Australia’s Joshua Keirl.

Further details about the competition and schedule are available at http://www.aiba.org/aiba-world-boxing-championship-doha-2015/.

Results and updates on the progress of the team at the World Championships will be posted at www.gbboxing.org.uk and on the GB Boxing twitter feed @gbboxing.

The semi-finals and final stages of the tournament will be screened live on the BBC red button from Saturday to October 15.