Twenty-two years ago, when Katie Taylor was 17 years old, her father and coach Pete rang the governing body for boxing in Ireland, the Irish Amateur Boxing Association, from their base in Cascia, Italy.
Pete was concerned about the welfare of his teenage daughter stepping into the ring at the Torneo Italia Women’s Tournament against the best amateur in the world at the time, a Canadian called Jennifer Ogg. He was considering pulling her out of the fight.
Ogg, a physical powerhouse, was twice Katie’s age and had 200 fights under her belt, while Katie had fought five times at international level.
But the boxer in the teenager had a different view to her dad. When she first saw the entries, and Ogg’s name among them, her hope was to be drawn against the world champion.
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After some consideration, and Katie’s own insistence, she did not withdraw. Used to sparring with men in Ireland, she went on to beat Ogg and chalk up the first breakthrough of her career.
The win taught Taylor to believe that anything was possible. She didn’t know it then, but chasing seemingly unattainable goals and achieving them would become one of the enduring themes of her boxing life.
Years before beating Ogg, her decision to box was itself a curiosity that immediately attracted local media attention. She was routinely asked to defend her right to box. In the 1990s, girls just didn’t do it.
Then, in 2001, as a 15-year-old she took part in the first sanctioned amateur female fight in Ireland, when she stepped into the ring against Belfast teen Alanna Nihell, then Alanna Audley.
For boxing, it was a massive cultural shift that was met with opposition and ridicule. Boxing for women then was not a popular sport and was not included in the Olympic roster.
There was open hostility to the athletes, much of it the weary kind of misogyny that greeted women’s rugby in it’s early stages. Many others considered it an inappropriate participation sport for women.
But Taylor was on her way. By 2005 she had won the first of her six European Championships and the following year the first of her five World Championships and was already hustling to change hearts and minds to get women’s boxing included in the Olympics.
By 2007 she was making inroads. She had caught the eye of the male-dominated administrators and was invited to take part in an exhibition bout at the men’s World Championships at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
Essentially, Taylor and three-time Pan American champion Katie Dunn were on view to be assessed by the doyens of the sport, who had already ruled women’s boxing out for inclusion in the 2008 Olympics – a crushing blow to Taylor – but were considering it for the 2012 games in London.
Not unexpectedly, the world lightweight champion (60kg), who stepped up to the heavier light welterweight (63kg) division for the demonstration, stopped Dunn on the 15-point rule (15-0) in round one of the bout.
Boxing at that time was unfolding for Taylor, just as her football career began to blossom. But by 2009, playing for Ireland under manager Noel King had become impossible, commitment to each sport affecting her performance in the other.
Her last game for Ireland was against Kazakhstan in a World Cup qualifier in September of that year and the studs were hung up for a more focused approach to boxing.
But Taylor had made her point in Chicago as to how polished and technically adept women boxers could be, and it was added to the Olympic schedule.
By 2012 Ningbo, Barbados and Qinhuangdao had provided Taylor with three more world titles and established her as the best lightweight in the world by some distance.
The games in London arrived in 2012, with Taylor’s sights immediately shifting to winning gold. Becoming Olympic champion was a dream she held from childhood, precognition by any measure given boxing wasn’t in the Olympics during her youth.
“I was blessed to be here,” she said about London. “But being here was never going to be enough.”
Gold in London was followed by heartbreak in Rio four years later after a shock quarter-final defeat by Finland’s Mira Potkonen. A 39-37, 38-38, 37-39 split decision, in what became known as the most corrupt Olympic boxing tournament in history, was a setback, but it serendipitously sent Taylor down the road of professional boxing.
She began to shape the most cut-throat business in sport in her own image.
What she had done in amateur boxing she did in the professional ranks, hoisting it to another level, becoming the undisputed world champion at lightweight and super lightweight, and making it a mass audience event.
[ ‘It will be her moment’: Katie Taylor’s glittering career comes home to CrokerOpens in new window ]
Again, inserting herself in history, Taylor and Amanda Serrano were the first women to headline a boxing event at Madison Square Garden, which they sold out. Now, it’s Croke Park’s turn.
For years people said a final bow for Taylor at Ireland’s largest stadium was a pie in the sky idea; that it would not, could not, happen. Security issues, insurance, costs.
However, the naysayers had not looked at Taylor’s career playbook. She has always been about changing landscapes, chasing things down. It’s in her DNA.
She’s got her stadium. Now she must fill it. Why would anyone doubt that she will?
