Taylor would love to fight Jonas again

Katie Taylor has admitted that she would love to face Natasha Jonas again at this year’s European Union Boxing Championships.

The bout between the women from Bray and Liverpool was voted fight of the Olympics in London last year — male or female — and marked Taylor’s long-awaited debut at the Games.

The eventual Olympic champion emerged an ultimately comprehensive winner (26-15) but not before a searching examination of her abilities when placed on the back foot early in the second of four rounds.

Taylor went on to overcome Tajikistan’s Manzuna Chorieva and Sofya Ochigava of Russia to claim an historic gold medal and has only recently returned to the ring with two fights in the last week.

“It would be a great fight,” she said of Jonas at the launch of the adidas Boost footwear earlier this week. “We were trying to get her over here for one of the fights but it just didn’t happen. It would be great to meet her again but there are plenty of girls there aside from her too and it would mean so much to come back with another European Union title.”

Despite all her titles and successes, Taylor spoke this week about the hunger that is still driving her on towards another Games success in Rio.

The EU Championship aside, it is a quiet year for the women’s fight game with neither the European Championships or the World Championships being held in 2013 but Taylor is making up for it with a busy domestic schedule. Ukraine’s Yulia Tsiplakova and Denista Eliseeva of Bulgaria are next in the firing line when they come to Dublin and Castlebar respectively next month but Taylor’s diary is less demanding in the following months.

A lengthy stint training in Bray may beckon. “I like to keep busy with fights throughout the year but it is important to work on new things in training as well and try to improve. A few weeks of really hard training, that’s where all the fights are won as well so I don’t have any problem motivating myself even if it is great to have a fight to focus on.”

Whatever the plan, standing still isn’t part of it. “There is so much I have to improve on. At the moment we’re working a lot on power and speed and my leg strength as well. Just little small things. The one per cents make a huge difference in international boxing. It’s important to always reinvent yourself for every competition. You stay so consistent across the years but people have videos of you boxing and you try to bring something new to every competition. It’s important to stay one step ahead.”