Sporting Advent Calendar #19: High five for Katie Taylor

There's not a lot left to say about Katie Taylor. She's the Great White of women's boxing. If you're one of the new generation she herself has inspired, and you come looking for her, chances are you going to need a bigger boat . . . and possibly a harpoon of some sort.

The most remarkable thing about her fifth consecutive world title win in South Korea was not that it happened at all, it was that it still clearly meant so much to her. Increasingly, she is unfamiliar with her young opponents, who are stronger, fitter and more talented than most of their predecessors. But she’s fighting time and history as much as anything else.

And, of course, amateur boxing judges, who routinely can’t be trusted unless presented with irrefutable evidence of one athlete’s superiority over her peers, if that is the right term.

Taylor’s legacy was cemented in 2012 when Olympic gold, a birthright almost, was hers at last and Ireland belonged to her as much as she belonged to us. What happens from now on is pushing her into a realm few, if any, Irish athletes have experienced before; the absolute best in her business, ever.

It’s getting tougher, that much is obvious from her bouts in Jeju, but even if one or two of them do have the talent, do they have the dead-eyed dedication to pull it off? Katie does.

She’s 28 now, she’ll go for Olympic gold again in Rio when she has just turned 30. She could yet retire on her own terms and if she does, this amateur athlete from Bray will be a global icon, no longer just ours, but a treasure of her craft worldwide.