‘Dream come true’ as golden-girl Taylor books London ticket

The anxiety surrounding her Olympic qualification was dispelled when Katie Taylor arrived at the stadium in Qinhuangdao for her quarter-final bout yesterday and was informed her opponent, Mihaela Lacatus, had conceded a walk over.

The 30-year-old Romanian, world champion at bantamweight in 2005, injured her neck in Tuesday’s 17-14 victory over Bulgarian, Denista Eliseeva, and was forced to withdraw.

While it guaranteed Taylor a bronze medal, it still did not guarantee Olympic selection with four Europeans still standing in the lightweight division and only three to go to London.

Ironically it was Katie Taylor’s opponent in tomorrow’s semi-final, Tajikistan’s 19-year-old Asian champion, Mavzuna Choriyeva, who guaranteed the Bray woman her Olympic place with a 20-12 victory over Estelle Mossley from France.

“It was an awful anxious wait,” team manager Anna Moore admitted. “I never thought I would cheer against Europeans but we had to today.”

Her father and coach Peter said, “The chance of being an Olympian has always been Katie’s dream and now she’s an Olympian. We’ve waited for this moment. Katie was three times world champion and five times European champion before this and hopefully now four time world champion after this.”

It was an emotional moment for Katie but she admitted it was not a mission accomplished.

“It’s a dream come through,” she said. “I just can’t believe it really. It took years and years of hard work — years and years to get here — I’m in the semi-final and also qualified for the Olympics as well. It’s an amazing achievement.

“On RTÉ today I just thanked everyone for all the prayers — I could not have done this without all the prayers really — I am just so grateful for these last few days and these last few years. I could not have done it without Him (God) — I just want to thank Him for it.”

She returned to the team hotel, leaving her two coaches, father Pete and Zaur Antia, to watch and video the remaining opposition but admitted she felt sorry for her opponent who had to withdraw.

“It’s a neck injury she got in her fight yesterday,” she said. “I’m really sorry for her. It would have been a really exciting fight, I’m sure.”

“I’ll enjoy this walk-over today and tomorrow I’ll start focusing on my next fight,” she said. “I have to go back and do a couple of sessions just to get my weight down. It is going to be a tough fight — the semi-finals of the world championships and there are no easy fights at this stage.”

* RTÉ Sport will broadcast exclusive coverage of Katie Taylor’s semi-final tomorrow morning at 8am on RTÉ Two and streamed live on RTÉ.ie