Long road from dingy Bray gym to London ring
Walk across the front and it measures just 12 metres, its depth isn’t a whole lot greater and a cluster of tourists who walk by ask you if it is derelict. The tin roof sits uneasily on a frail frame, the windows have been blocked up by a builder, the door is a rusted chunk of uneven metal.
In boxing it’s not the quality of the gym, but the quality of the fighters in the gym but even considering that, it’s amazing to think that this has been as it good as it’s gotten for Katie Taylor. As a kid there wasn’t even this humble setting, so her father and coach Peter came up with idea of pulling the kitchen table at home to one side and the tiles of the floor became her canvas. Meanwhile in the garden shed, there was just enough room for a bag and a few weights so she could push herself well beyond her limit time and again.
From there to here takes some comprehension. The top end of Bray is only a short pre-dawn jog away from the waterfront but it’s immeasurable in terms of the journey Taylor has undertaken. For there, in the main square, the big screens stand in front of rows of people as Taylor prepares for an Olympic semi-final. It’s impossible to judge, but there are more than 1,000 people here at least and their roar is enough to go toe-to-toe with the speakers scattered around the place. The ExCel Arena won’t be bettered but they’ll give it a go and as their girl enters the ring and every time a punch lands, the place erupts and flags take to the skies.
In the build up to this bout, it all had the feel of Jones’ Road on a championship Sunday as a waterfall of people made their way up the middle of the town. Most people were covered in tricolours but anyone lacking obvious patriotism was busy with the makeshift stalls set up on the way in. The national flags they were buying were adorned with the words “Olympic champion” while the posters being waved around by children had a picture of Taylor beside a gold medal. And that’s the pressure she’s been under — these people aren’t here to see her fight, they are here to see her win. But those are the standards she set herself during years of world domination.
How did it come to this? An unlikely story. Even if she was a tomboy; even if her father had boxed for Ireland; even if her brothers were trying to make his gloves fit on her young hands; even if her mother was the first female referee and judge in the country, long before her daughter could reach the bottom rope, none of them really wanted her getting involved in such a sport. But one evening in 1997, Peter was bringing her to athletics training before he went on to coach his sport of choice. Problem was athletics had been cancelled and he couldn’t get a babysitter. Suddenly Katie was sitting on a step in the gym, initially too shy to join in, ultimately too curious to turn away.
All these years on, that moment has resulted in a little sliver of the excitement we had in Italia ’90. The colour, the atmosphere, the noise and the desperation for a little success in a country on its knees. But Taylor has dealt with the pressure in her own unique and understated way. She’s never stopped winning and now wins again and the square in Bray erupts and music blares out and the singing starts before people finally filter back to work.
In the ring in London, Taylor casually waves at the masses that include David Cameron. Back down by the waterfront in Bray some swans pick away at that lump of a metal door on her gym.
As Eddie Dupris put it in Million Dollar Baby: “If there’s magic in boxing, it’s the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, beyond ruptured kidneys. It’s the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.”
Even in her home town, nobody knew the magnitude of this dream until now.
Read more:
Medal treble lifts nation
Cameron knocked out by Katie masterclass
‘Katie is Irish but feel free to claim Ronan, Louis or Jedward’
O’Connor: I feel vindicated for what happened in Athens
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