Irish Times/Vhi Healthcare Sportswoman of the Year: Katie Taylor (Boxing)Having been one of the panel of adjudicators, Mary Hanniganwas at yesterday's awards

The end of December is the time of dread in these annual awards. Having got through the preceding 12 months with just the odd stormy exchange, the judges finally have to get around to making the decision on who should be our sportswoman of the year - when, on occasions, it was tricky enough agreeing on our monthly winners.

As the year wore on, though, potential candidates for the overall award staked their claims, not least the Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Emma Byrne, who had an outstanding season with Arsenal; Jessica Kürten, the fourth-ranked showjumper in the world; Eileen O'Keeffe, our leading athlete in 2007; and Mary Leacy, who captained Wexford to their memorable defeat of the seemingly invincible Cork (chasing the three-in-a-row) in the camogie All-Ireland final.

Genuine contenders all, but, not for the first time, along came Katie Taylor.

Back in 2005 the Bray fighter took our May award when she became the first Irishwoman to win a gold medal at the European Boxing Championships - to add, incidentally, to her FAI 2005 under-19 Footballer of the Year award.

A year on she was a monthly winner again, this time for successfully defending her European title and rising to the top of the world amateur rankings.

A month later she added an even more prestigious title to her list of honours when she triumphed at the World Championships in India.

She was in contention yet again for a monthly award in April of last year when she capped a superb display in the opening game of the Republic of Ireland's European Championship qualifying campaign against Hungary, which they won 2-1, with a wonder goal from 35 yards.

We reckoned, though, that it was safe enough to bide our time; once she swapped her football boots for her boxing gloves there would be a fair old chance she'd be in the running for her third award in as many years.

And so it proved. In October we noted that her third successive European Championship title marked the sixth anniversary of the day she made Irish sporting history, at just 15 years of age, when she fought and beat Belfast's Alanna Audley in the first officially sanctioned women's bout ever held in Ireland.

And since then history making has become something of a habit for Katie Taylor.

Her performances at the 2007 European Championships in Denmark simply underlined the fact that she is a class above every opponent she takes on.

She began the tournament by stopping a Greek fighter in the second round, on the 15-point "mercy" rule, before knocking out her Spanish quarter-final opponent with a left hook after just 30 seconds.

Her only test came in the semi-finals when Ukrainian Yana Zavyalova won the third round of their bout, but Taylor had done more than enough in the first two rounds to take the fight 11-4.

Eight-nil up after the first round of the final, against Switzerland's Sandra Brugger, Taylor stopped her opponent on the 15-point rule in round two, retaining her title with ease. In her four fights in Denmark she conceded only four points, while amassing a total of 49.

The following month Taylor fought the three-time Pan-American champion Katie Dunn of Canada in Chicago in an exhibition bout before the men's World Championship finals. She won 15-0, stopping Dunn in the second round, again on the mercy rule.

Members of the International Olympic Committee were at the fight in Chicago and Taylor, who has resisted offers to turn professional, clings to the hope her performance that night - and on so many nights before - will have helped convince them that women's boxing has earned its place in the 2012 Olympic Games.

It is a crushing disappointment for Taylor that she cannot compete for a gold medal in Beijing this year, not least because her weight - 60kg - was one of four proposed for inclusion.

She is, after all, the world's top-ranked fighter in her lightweight division, but take a look at the International Amateur Boxing rankings and you'll see exactly the level she has reached.

The best pound-for-pound fighter in the world? There's a Romanian in fifth, a Canadian in fourth, a Russian in third and second, and, yes, Katie Taylor at the top, the leading pound-for-pound amateur boxer on the planet.

Her father, Peter, a former Irish light-heavyweight champion, is also her coach, his child-minding crisis a decade ago inadvertently triggering the start of his daughter's boxing career.

"I was getting ready for the All-Irelands but we had no baby-sitter so I had to take Katie to the gym with me. I was busy training, but when I looked around there she was, in sparring with the boys." Age? "Ah, about 10 or 11."

A decade on and Taylor, the one-time Wicklow "schoolboy" footballer of the year, is peerless in her sport, and far from feeling burdened by her role as a pioneer she talks only of being honoured by it.

Women's boxing has had its share of folk intent on turning it into a money-making circus act, but Katie Taylor is the real thing, respected by the sport's aficionados for her pure boxing skill.

It's difficult to imagine anyone requiring the mercy rule to leave the company of such a quietly spoken and charmingly unassuming lady. Hers is a remarkable sporting story, an Irishwoman unequalled by any of her world contemporaries. Best of all, she made life mercifully easy for the judges in 2007. Sportswoman of the Year? No contest.