IT WILL BE of scant consolation but Katie Taylor returned to winning ways this afternoon as she ended her Olympic qualifier campaign with victory over Bulgaria’s Svetlana Staneva.
The Olympic, World and European champion was stunned on Thursday as she suffered her first defeat in five years to derail her qualification bid for Rio.
But the Bray boxer bounced back to record a unanimous points victory over Staneva in the lightweight division box-off to claim third spot.
Taylor will now have to wait until the world championships next month to secure her place in Rio, where reaching the semi-finals would be enough to get the 29-year-old on the plane.
Alternatively, if either of the finalists from this tournament reach the semi-finals at the world championships, Taylor will automatically qualify.
After Brendan Irvine became the fifth Irish boxer to qualify yesterday, David Oliver Joyce has his chance this afternoon when he faces Volkan Gokcek in his lightweight box-off.
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