An 11-man Irish senior squad, under High Performance Director Gary Keegan and coaches Billy Walsh, Zuar Antia and Jim Moore, will fly out to Chicago on Tuesday ahead of the World Championships which begin at the University of Illinois on October 23.

The Championships will also act as the first qualifying tournament for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Most boxers making it to the quarter finals in the Windy City will book their tickets for Beijing although heavyweights and super heavyweights must reach the semi-finals because of the lower entry levels in these weight categories.

Five Irish boxers, including Carruth, have won medals, all bronze, at World Championship level since 1974. James Moore, son of Irish coach Jim, was the last Irish athlete to finish in a podium position at this level in Belfast in 2001.

Eleven years before Moore's achievement, Carruth reached the semi-finals in Moscow where he was beaten by Andreas Otto of East Germany. Carruth took revenge on Otto in the quarter-finals of the 1992 Olympics en route to claiming gold.

Carruth reckons that doing well in Chicago can give Irish boxers the self-belief to step up and compete with distinction on the highest stage of them all.

He said: "It was a great confidence booster for me to win a medal at the World Championships in Moscow in 1989.

I proved to myself there that I could compete with the best in the world and when I qualified for the Olympics I wasn't overawed by the opposition.

Likewise, I believe that if the Irish team can do well at in Chicago and secure qualification for the Beijing Olympics in the process that it will be a great confidence booster as they will have proved to themselves that they can compete against the best in the game."

Carruth also believes that the European Union Championships, which saw Ken Egan, Darren Sutherland, and Roy Sheahan claim gold and Cathal McMonagle and Carl Frampton win silver at the National Stadium in Dublin last June, shows the winning mentality that the Irish team need travelling to Chicago.

Middleweight Sutherland, from the St Saviour's club in Dublin, reached the quarterfinals of the last World Championships in Mianyang City, China, while light heavy Egan (Neilstown, Dublin) and welterweight Sheahan made it to the last 16. If Sutherland can repeat his performance of 2005 in Chicago and Egan and Sheahan can go one better, then Ireland will have at least three boxers at next year's Olympics. Carruth added:

"The important thing at this level is to keep winning and to make winning a habit. I believe that the Irish team have the talent to do well in Chicago and to also do well at the Olympics.

"Lets face it, if I, and Wayne McCullough and all the other Irish boxers who won medals at the Olympics and World Championships can do it, then why can't they? It's all about self-belief and that self-belief comes from winning.

"The preliminary rounds in Chicago will be very important. If the first Irish boxers into the ring win their fights then that will have a very positive effect on the rest of the squad. It is going to be intense, and nothing can be left to chance, but we are sending a talented squad to Chicago and this is their chance to prove themselves."

There will be two final Olympic qualifying tournaments for European boxers in Italy (Pascara) and Greece (Athens) in February and April next year.

Meanwhile, World and back-to-back European lightweight champion Katie Taylor is in Denmark targeting a historic third medal in a row at the 2007 Women's European Championships which begin in Vejle tomorrow.

Taylor, from the St Fergal's club in Bray, received a boost before the Europeans with the release of September's ABA rankings, which rank her number one in the world for the eight month running.