BOXING: Katie Taylor's dream of boxing for an Olympic gold medal edged closer today when the sport's amateur governing body voted unanimously to propose women's amateur boxing to be included at the London 2012 Games.
"This is a crucial decision in the development of women's boxing," said Dr Wu Ching-Kuo, President International Boxing Association (AIBA) after a meeting of the AIBA executive committee in Milan.
"AIBA fully support the idea of including women's boxing in the Olympic Games and now we must work hard to try to put forward a proposal the IOC can not refuse."
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is expected to make a decision on whether women's boxing is included in the 2012 Games at its congress in Copenhagen in October.
Taylor is the current World and European lightweight champion, who is at the top of her sport. Still only 22, she has been crowned European champion three times and successfully defended her world title in China last November, where she was also named boxer of the tournament.
The Bray native, who also represents Ireland on the women’s soccer team, has always dreamt of one day boxing for an Olympic medal.
“I still get few butterflies in my stomach every time I hear about it, but hopefully it will be the right decision,” she said in reference to the inclusion of women’s boxing at the Olympics. “All the signs are good but all I can do is keep going forward, try to keep the head down.
“Either way I can’t imagine myself doing anything else other than boxing, and being a full-time athlete. I dreamt as a young child of being a world-class athlete.”