Katie Taylor looks forward to another big year

An enduring truism of Irish sport; the ground shifts, the skies change and Katie Taylor remains stubbornly consistent. With these early months stretching towards the European Championships and later the World Championships, it's a year to plunder after a fallow season.

But talk of the world event being shifted around Canada in the autumn and maybe even exported to the USA or Uzbekistan generates little more than a knowing smile.

It’s still her thing to smile. She smiles at confusion and nerves. She smiles at strangers and children and cameras. Sometimes when she gets home to Oldcourt in Bray her jaw aches.

What age are you now? “I’m not doing that age thing,” she smiles. “Twenty seven. Yeah, I’m getting old . . . over the hill.” The smile can be anything she wants it to be.

A European tournament, expected to take place in May, has not yet been assigned to any country, while the World Championships were originally in Toronto, where Taylor will march the streets as Grand Marshall in this year's St Patrick's Day parade, have been shifted. The city of Quebec comes up.

“I heard Uzbekistan,” says her father, Pete. “Maybe the USA.”

Maybe. Maybe. Every ring is the same inside the ropes. Any country will do in a pioneering career that has taken her many places and never faltered, even before the casual attitude of her governing body. Today boxing takes her to a Dublin art gallery, with sponsor AIB's launch of a smartphone app.

'Keep on top'
"This year I'd see as being a big year so I want to keep on top of things," she says. "I haven't heard anything about the European Championships, where they are going to be. Even the World Championships in Canada I heard they were going to change places again from Toronto to Quebec.

“The way I look at it is that I’ll just prepare for a European Championships in May and hopefully things will get cleared up about it over the next few weeks. It’s an important year for me now with both events.”

Her spare approach to preparation hasn’t diminished, or wavered. Taylor knows she sets the bar and that in turn requires redesign and change before the world catches up. She and Pete always talk in an uncomplicated way of a brutal work ethic and a healthy life. It’s the only way it has ever been, although, not simple. Her contempt of failure is another driving force.

“I think it’s a huge motivational factor,” she says. “I know how it feels to lose fights. I know how it feels to be on top of the podium as well. When you lose big fights it’s a horrible feeling and I never want to feel like that again. That’s what gets me up in the morning.”

The last defeat in any event came as a surprise, even to the referee, who held her hand up as the winner just as the judges declared Bulgaria’s Denitsa Eliseeva the champion. That was in February 2011. Cack-handed strokes don’t land on her lap too often.

More recently bouts in the Mansion House against Canadian Caroline Veyre and locally in Bray with Finland's Mira Potkonen fell unanimously her way. As ever the wins are quickly forgotten and like her Olympic gold medal are locked in the memory vault. Victories are short lived, never a distraction.

'Can enjoy them'
"I think I can enjoy them (wins) for a week or so but then you're kind of switched on to the next competition," she says. "When you retire from the sport you can look back on those victories. When you're in the middle of your own career you're kind of thinking of the next competition and the next step. I was watching Ronan O'Gara's documentary and he was saying he'd have loved to be able enjoy it a bit more. I think I can relate to that side of things."

More pressing are the Irish senior championships that begin in February and the possibility of two fights in Cork at the end of this month. The Irish belt is a curious one and Taylor has yet to fight for her title. Last year a name registered but did not weigh-in. There would be, some believe, health and safety issues if an opponent actually turned up to face the European, world and Olympic champion. Like last year a creative solution will be found.

“It’s a big competition, whether somebody weighs in or not,” she says. “I’ll prepare well although I’ve never fought in it. I’d like to think someone is going to weigh in and if not we’ll hopefully get someone over to box on the show. Yeh, they’ve done that before when I boxed a Polish girl for the senior title.”