People of Mayo, your stage will need an extension because your magnificence of late July now has company as the greatest sporting fairytale this country has ever seen. Both at the same venue within weeks of each other.
No doubt there will be those scoffing at such odd comparisons. Fear not. They are not mentioned in tandem for comparative purposes. Merely to underscore the magnitude of the achievement for and impact on those involved and by extension the wider sports loving Irish people.
Is there a more sports mad nation on the planet? I think not. Sporting endeavours have lifted the Irish spirit at times of great economic and other depression. Basically when the country was on its arse.
Think of Euro ’88, Italia ’90, the four matches between Meath and Dublin the following year or, regardless of whether the Irish fraternity were in a position to compete with the hosts or not, the hordes who plan their year from one Cheltenham Festival to the next.
Yet, for two decades, there had been one Irish – no, global – sporting icon who by grace of God happens to be Irish who went above and beyond anything anyone has ever achieved before.
Consider that when Pete Taylor imbued his daughter with a love of pugilism, Ladies Boxing wasn’t even a ‘thing’. Indeed, for reasons that may not be that hard to understand, in many quarters it was frowned upon.
I recall that a lady member of one of the most prominent GAA families once opined to this writer that Ladies Football was a bit too rough and tumble for their liking (views since thankfully changed) you can understand why boxing was met with such scepticism.
However, as one female broadcaster who did the same for Irish language media in her own right put it, “Katie has been busting down barriers everywhere she has gone since the very start”. Incidentally, the point was being made in the context of a certain high profile American talk show host having a certain other Irish specimen on their show when they would be far better served and representative of the Irish people by having Katie Taylor aboard.
At this point, it must be admitted that perhaps yours truly hasn’t be quite as invested in the career of the inspirational Bray lady as might have been the case but, unless you have been domiciled in Yakutsk Russia – the coldest and most remote place on the planet – you must have been aware of the exceptional Wicklow woman’s unrivalled achievements. Ones which it is doubtful will ever be usurped.
Without even contemplating the European and/or World Amateur Championship titles Taylor has amassed – simply because there’s a fear of leaving some of the gargantuan haul out. Perhaps best to start at the foundations of the story by stating the simple but indisputable fact is that there would be no such thing as the sport of properly organised Ladies Boxing without Katie Taylor.
Yes, Deirdre Gogarty had won a world title as far back as 1997 but it is beyond question that the Limerick lady’s achievement never got the coverage, respect or status it deserved. All of which, in a roundabout sort of way increased the pressure on Taylor.
For make no mistake about it, were it not for Taylor and those around her, it seems beyond question that females competing in pugilism at the Olympic Games never would have come to pass. Not that we should have ever doubted that she would uphold her end of the bargain and deliver the Gold.
Which she duly did on August 5th of 2012, defeating Sofia Ochigava of Russia to emerge triumphant in the Lightweight division. On a day which was laced with poignance for this writer as Ireland’s greatest man of letters – Con Houlihan – was laid to rest in his native and beloved Castle Island hours before the crowning of queen Katie. One couldn’t but wonder what he of the unmistakable scraggly mane would have made of it all.
Now, nobody would’ve batted an eyelid if the golden girl had never stepped in through the ropes of a ring after London. But then, for someone who made a life, career and legacy out of confounding knockers and begrudgers for the better part of two decades, she was always going to want to try her hand in the pro ranks.
Having taken the plunge to do so at the age of 30 having competed at a second Olympiad with distinction in Brazil, it’s hard to know what her expectations and/or ambitions would have been. Are we surprised that she has absolutely embossed the sport as her own? As if it wasn’t already, of course not.
That she remained at the very pinnacle of the sport for a decade given the demographics under which she entered the professional realm is nothing short of astounding.
What is perhaps not surprising but should be yet another source of the awe in which Mrs McCavanagh will forever be held is that she managed to garner belts in three different weight disciplines.
Which in itself gave rise to what turned into thrilling rivalries with Natasha Jonas and Delphine Persoon and Chantelle Cameron and Amanda Serrano. And again, nobody would have been shocked if she had undone the wraps and hung up the gloves once the trilogy with Serrano had concluded in Madison Square Garden.
But no, Katie knew what she wanted and with the singularity which defined her career she set about making it happen.
Aided and abetted it must be said by having the Messi and Ronaldo of boxing management – Brian Peters and Eddie Hearne in her corner. In truth, even if they were of a mind to, there was absolutely no way Croke Park were ever getting out of giving KT the curtain call she had always dreamt of.
In our nation’s greatest stadium. With it bursting at the seems. There were two ways of looking at the actual bout in its rudimentary sense.
Either Katie’s French opponent Flora Pili would just be glad to have the opportunity to be on the bill for one of the greatest and most emotional sporting occasions the world has seen. Or she could be the ultimate villain and party pooper and nab the world title for herself.
On bare form, she would’ve been more than entitled to fancy her chances of doing so too given that she was getting from Taylor 12 years in age and coming in with an unbeaten record of her own whereas the Irish superstar had, admittedly heinously, been declared the vanquished in the middle installment of the trilogy against Serrano.
However, even allowing for the cynics and skeptics sniping about there being an Irish referee, hometown decisions and such bull dung, there was no way on this planet anything other than a Taylor victory was ever going to be countenanced. That is not in any way to imply nefarious doings on behalf of anybody. More an acknowledgement that there was no way the hometown heroine’s camp were going to let even the possibility of anything going wrong from their side of the fence.
On that front, years of privileged possibility of following this multi talented sporting phenom’s greatness unfolding has informed that she very much had her own way of doing things. Thus, when Pili appeared to be having the best of things early on, the one thing you knew there was absolutely no need for – in the Taylor camp or anywhere else – was panic.
So it was that, as she had done umpteen times over two plus decades, with superior footwork, bodily movement, shot range and the endurance levels of an Energizer bunny on steroids, the former Irish U-19 soccer Player Of The Year ultimately wore down her obdurate but eventually outclassed opponent.
In all honesty, it was only when her arm was lifted in triumph one final time that the real awe-inspiring spectacle began to unfold. To the point where the normally monotone, business-like daughter of the Garden County struggled to hold her own emotions in check.
Imploring the in-ring interviewer from DAZN Sports to “Just give me a minute, let me have a look around” before asking her adoring public and the millions tuned in around the globe “Did ya enjoy that?” That wouldn’t go within an ass’s roar of properly articulating the joyous spectacle it has been to follow her astounding achievements in and out of sport.
Privilege comes in many forms and to see Ireland’s golden girl get the send off she longed for and most thoroughly deserved was nothing short of exactly that. Ni bheidh a leithid ann aris.
Fág freagra