BOXING:REGARDLESS OF how Katie Taylor does in London this summer, her Olympic campaign will be swift. Win or lose, the current lightweight world champion will have three fights over four days if she makes it through to the Olympic final on August 9th.
There is some confusion over the current seeding and wild-card entries for the Olympics but Taylor knows her first fight will be a quarter-final bout on August 6th followed by a rest day on the 7th. The semi-finals for the inaugural event are scheduled for August 8th – 20 years to the day since Michael Carruth won his gold medal in Barcelona in 1992 – and the finals the next day.
There has been considerable debate about just who should get the wild-card entries as the recent qualification system in China was demonstrably flawed. The top ranked fighters behind Taylor, both European, Tatar Gulson and Sofya Ochigava, have not qualified, while the unheard of Tunisian Tim Jouini, who Taylor beat in her first qualification bout, is through to London as the organisers had to fill the African quota.
“It’s mad,” says Katie’s father and coach Peter Taylor. “The Tunisian girl Katie beat got in. The girl Katie beat from Kazakstan, she qualified. It’s mad like. It should be the best girls in the Olympics.”
Less a concern and more of an observation is if Gulson and Ochigava, get dropped into the draw as wild cards, Taylor could meet them early in the competition.
“We are going to train at home and we are going to go to Italy for one week, two weeks before the Olympic Games start,” added Taylor.
“Then we will come back for one week of tapering. Our preparation has to be a little bit different (from the men).
“Katie starts (in the Olympics) a week after the lads. They start on July 28th and we start on August 6th. We’re a little bit behind them. They will be tapering that week in Italy while we will be heavily sparring.”
Taylor’s boxing club enterprise in Bray has become a latter day Field of Dreams. Built on the success of Katie, and, more recently, Olympic-qualified Adam Nolan, Government money and the euro of Monaghan’s Paddy Mallon has transformed the gym from a disgraceful “shed” which nonetheless brought four world championships to Ireland, into a comfortable, modest facility.
Ireland’s most successful athlete no longer has to beg the friendly local Harbour Bar to use the bathroom.
“If we hadn’t got the improvements here it would have been hard to stay. In winter it was freezing. You came out with frost on your head it was that cold. If it hadn’t been done up I don’t think we would have stayed. We couldn’t have done it,” added the coach.
From here on in for Team Taylor, the plan is to stay healthy and watch while officials decide who merits entry to the draw. Either way, Katie Taylor wants all the best fighters to be there. She has already declared she believes the Games should have been open to professional boxers as well as the amateurs.
“I think they need the big names in London,” says Peter. “Let’s go and showcase women’s boxing. Okay, you are inviting trouble but I think Katie is taking responsibility for making sure female boxing carries on in the Olympics. Everyone will be watching.
“If she wins an easy medal in the Olympics, people will devalue all the other medals she’s won, the world championships, the European championships. All people do is read about Katie winning thinking she must be beating everybody easily.”
