WOMEN'S BOXING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS:Katie Taylor notched up her fourth straight World Championship title here this morning after beating Russian southpaw Sofya Ochigava 11-7 in a tense technical final in Qinhuangdao, northern China.
"It's amazing to win four world titles ... it was such a tense fight, so close all the way through, a real game of patience and nerves," she said after an absorbing contest in which both fighters gave little away in a supremely tactical fight.
"I just tried to concentrate. She was feinting constantly and I was feinting constantly. She's a complete counterpuncher and it was always going to be difficult for her once she goes a few points down. I'm just glad I'm going home with a gold medal," she said.
Winning the gold means that the Bray lightweight will go in as number-one seed in the lightweight division in London. This takes her straight through to the quarterfinals, and only one win from a medal-winning position. She is Ireland's best hope of an Olympic gold medal since the 1996 Games in Atlanta. The contest was extremely technical, with both fighters circling each other and giving nothing away in the early rounds. The referee intervened at one point to encourage more aggression, but both knew that it was a close contest and they were not in danger of conceding a penalty.
Her father and coach Peter Taylor had flagged the contest as a technical battle.
"She's a great boxer, the Russian girl, and we knew it was going to be tactical, but thank God Katie held her nerve. This was not a fight for the armchair viewers, this was one for the connoisseurs," he said.
Taylor will now take a break for a week before resuming training for the London Olympics. "I'm just so glad to be going into the Olympics in the best shape I've ever been in," she said.
Taylor beat Ochigava in the finals of the European Championships in October last year and as the world number one and number two, the two fighters are well used to each other.
"Sofya is a fantastic boxer and she's always been at the very, very top. We have a great rivalry going on. We're great friends outside the ring but inside it's different," she said.
Taylor qualified easily for this summer's Olympics in London earlier this week when she reached the last four of this tournament. Taylor had to overcome a strong psychological challenge to secure the championship because the Olympics are coming in just over two months.
Looking ahead to the line-up at the London games, there are still wildcards being handed out, and she repeated her call for them to be given to the best competitors in the game to give the sport of women's boxing a great platform.
"Hopefully they make the right decisions when handing out those wildcards. We need to showcase women's boxing," she said.
She singled out Canada's three-time AIBA World Champion Mary Spencer as someone who should be up for a wildcard. She has also said that Cheng Dong of China and Queen Underwood of the US should be at the London games.
