Taylor takes top award again

WOMEN IN SPORT:IT TAKES a special performance by a special athlete to earn the title "Sportswoman of the Year"; it takes an exceptional performance and athlete to defend it. But Katie Taylor has already made a habit of defending titles, so no surprise then that yesterday she was named The Irish Times/Irish Sports Council Sportswoman of the Year for 2008.

When Taylor won the title a year ago it wasn’t even a split decision, and once again, despite the quality of the other monthly award winners, she was the undisputed choice. In November she went to China as defending world lightweight champion and returned not only with that title intact, but as boxer of the tournament.

Then last month she was voted the best amateur women’s boxer in the world – or pound-for-pound, the best around, as they say in the business.

Taylor is now well used to the spotlight, and appeared typically undaunted in accepting her award in Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel. “It’s always great to be recognised at the end of a hard year,” she said. “But it was a great year as well, so that makes it all the more special. I do think as well that sometimes women athletes can be overlooked, not just in this country, but all over the world. So this is a great event to begin with, and to win it is such a huge honour.”

Of course the more Taylor wins in boxing the more pressure she comes under, and that’s something else she’s seems well used to. “I have a great family behind me,” she added, “and that’s the main thing. And any time the pressure does get a bit much I can talk to them about it. But I’ve always believed that if I train hard and then box to my potential I’ll always be very hard to beat, and that gives you some confidence as well.”

Still only 22, and still living at home in her native Bray, Taylor is also living the life of a full-time athlete. In other words, living her dream. It’s easily forgotten that she’s an equally-talented soccer player, and she does hope to play a more dual role in 2009. However, the International Olympic Committee may make a decision as early as next March as to whether or not women’s boxing will be included in London 2012, and that understandably is her ultimate goal.

“I still get few butterflies in my stomach every time I hear about it, but hopefully it will be the right decision. All the signs are good but all I can do is keep going forward, try to keep the head down.

“But either way I can’t imagine myself doing anything else other than boxing, and being a full-time athlete. I dreamt as well as a young child to be a world-class athlete. I still like to live a quiet life, but it’s great that some kids are coming up to me now, recognising me, and I hope I can be a good role model in that respect. It’s great to have kids looking up to me.”

There were, as Taylor herself recognised, plenty of similarly high achievers among the monthly award winners, any of whom could have been the outright winner in any other year.

Given it was an Olympic year, competitors from Beijing were to the fore, including race walker Olive Loughnane, the August winner for her superb seventh-place finish in the 20km event in Beijing.

Other athletes gaining monthly awards were long jumper Kelly Proper (January) and distance runner Mary Cullen (December), while Emma Davis won the June award in becoming Ireland’s first Olympic representative in the women’s triathlon.

Some of the monthly winners were, inevitably, away training or competing, including jockey Nina Carberry (March winner) and badminton player Chloe Magee (February winner).

There were also a couple of dual winners: Cavan twins Leona and Lisa Maguire won the May award for making it an all-Maguire affair in the final of the Irish Close at Westport, with Leona becoming the youngest ever winner of the tournament.

Cork’s Briege Corkery (Camogie) and Angela Walsh (Gaelic Football) also shared the September award for their All-Ireland success, with fencer Siobhan Byrne (April), squash player Madeline Perry (October) and rower Sinead Jennings (July) all enjoying outstanding individual years, with Jennings winning silver at the World Championships in Austria, missing out on gold by just .55 seconds.

A new facet to yesterday’s event was the Lifetime Achievement Award, and there couldn’t have been a more popular or inspiring winner than Belfast native Mary Peters, who overcame several barriers, not just the fledgling position of women’s sport, to win the Olympic gold medal in the pentathlon in Munich in 1972.

And there couldn’t have been a more popular man to present that award than Ronnie Delany, the Olympic gold medallist from 1956. Peters were clearly humbled by the honour, even if she’s well used such plaudits. Later in 1972 she won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year; was awarded an MBE in 1973, a CBE in 1990, and her continued work on behalf of both sport and the tourist industry in the Northern Ireland recently earned her a Dame Commander of the British Empire.