Boxing: It's going to be another Cheng Dong battle for Ireland's Katie Taylor as she attempts to claim her third gold medal in a row at the 6th AIBA Women's World Championships on Saturday evening.
The Bray woman showed the heart of a lioness to move within four two minute rounds of an historic hat-trick, following a nail-biting semi-final win over American lightweight Queen Underwood in Barbados tonight (Friday).
Taylor, who won her first World title in New Delhi in 2006, followed by a successful defence in Ningbo City, China in 2008, beat Underwood - her third win over the American in two years - 18-16 in a thrilling contest.
The 24-year old Irishwoman, who is now guaranteed at least silver, will face China’s Dong in tomorrow’s 60Kg final in a repeat of the 2008 final which Taylor won 13-2 in Ningbo City.
Dong, who stands at 6ft as opposed to Taylor’s 5ft 5in, beat Poland’s Karolina Graczyk 12-3 in the other 60Kg last four duel last night.
Having beaten Underwood 30-3 at the National Stadium in Dublin on February 27th, 2009 — she also stopped the American in the second round at the Arch Centre in Kildare three days later in an Ireland v USA dual international — Taylor was hot favourite to advance from last night’s decider.
And the 2008 AIBA World boxer of the year appeared to be living up to her billing after opening up a 10-1 lead at the end of the second round at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex in Bridgetown.
But Underwood — who received four points after Taylor received two public warnings for holding — fought back heroically and took the lead in the fourth and final frame before Taylor found the winning scores in the last few seconds of the bout of the day.
Last night’s victory was Taylor’s 99th from 105 bouts since 2001, and if she wins today then her 100th career win will correspond with her third World title and her tenth major international gold in nine years.
Today’s finals begin at 2pm local time, 7pm Irish time. Ten finals from light-flyweight to light-heavyweight will be decided on the day. It is estimated that Taylor and Dong will be in the ring shortly between 8pm and 8.30pm.
Meanwhile, the 2012 AIBA World Women’s Championships in China will act as the only qualifier for females for the London Olympics the same year. The exact qualifying criterion has yet to be confirmed.
Thirty six female boxers will compete at the 30th Olympiad across three weight categories; flyweight (48Kg-51Kg), lightweight (56Kg-60Kg — Taylor’s division) and middleweight (69Kg-75Kg).
However, from Taylor’s perspective, it is almost certain that World and Continental featherweight champions (57Kg), and even bantamweights (54Kg), will move up to the Bray fighters lightweight (60Kg) category and light-welterweights (64Kg) will drop back down to battle it out for the 12 Olympic berths in that weight division.
The Irish World Championships squad, which also includes Ceire Smith, Allana Murphy and Sinead Kavanagh, are due to arrive home from Barbados via Dublin airport at 4pm on Monday.