KATIE TAYLOR’S QUIET schedule in 2013 will make her even more dangerous as she punches her way to boxing history.
Fresh from her return to the ring and her first two wins as Olympic champion, Taylor promised she will keep her opponents guessing as she goes in search of her next gold medal.
The world number one had hoped to challenge for major international honours on home soil this year if the European Championships were staged in Ireland as planned.
But following the decision to postpone that tournament, her sights are now set on June’s EU Championships where she will look to extend her dominance by winning a fifth successive lightweight title.
The field in Hungary will be competitive, not least with Great Britain’s Natasha Jonas out to avenge her Olympic defeat, but Taylor says she’s using her down time to step things up a gear.
“There’s so much I have to improve on really,” she admitted in Dublin this week. “At the moment I’m working on power and speed and my leg strength as well, just little small things.
“The little 1 percents make a huge difference in international boxing and if you improve on one little small thing, that makes a huge difference in those really big fights.
I think it’s important to always reinvent yourself for every competition. That’s how you stay so consistent throughout the years. People have videos of me boxing throughout the years but in every competition, you try to bring something new to that competition and it’s important to keep improving to stay one step ahead all the time.
She added: “I have to keep improving because everyone else is improving as well. They’re not sitting back, they’re all improving as well. If I want to keep winning competitions, if I want to stay on top of my game, I have to keep improving.”
After six months out of the ring, Taylor returned last weekend with easy wins against Karolina Graczyk and Maike Klueners, the latter coming on Brian Peters’ sold-out “Road to Rio” promotion which she headlined in Dublin on Sunday. She fights twice next month on similar cards in Dublin and Castlebar.
If her lightweight rivals hoped to catch her with her eye off the ball this year, they’ll be sorely disappointed.
“It’s great that I’ve won that gold medal but I’m not sitting back now. I still have a lot to work on. I still feel like I have a lot more to give as well. I want to make history in the sport and I want to become a two-time Olympic champion now. That’s something that’s really driving me now.
This is where all the hard work is done really. It doesn’t start in the year of the Olympic Games. This is where it all starts.
