BOXING Taylor Wins Best Boxer Award

Katie Taylor was celebrating on the double last night after claiming her third AIBA World title in a row at the 6th AIBA Women's World Championships and scooping the boxer of the tournament award in Barbados.

The Bray woman, who also claimed the best boxer award at the 2008 AIBA World Championships in China, beat China's Cheng Dong, who she beat in the 2008 final, 18-5 in Saturday's 60kg final in Bridgetown.

Speaking after her 100th victory from 106 starts since 2001, Taylor, the current European and European Union champion, who had a sizable, and very vociferous, band of supporters cheering her all the way down to the the final bell in her lightweight duel with Dong, said her focus is now on the 30th Olympiad in London.

She also very sportingly praised her semi-final opponent Queen Underwood of the USA. Both women were involved in the bout of the tournament on Saturday night, Taylor emerging victorious from an absolute thriller.

"Yesterday I had to give credit to Queen Underwood. She boxed really well. She made it very hard for me and I felt very tired in the ring, said Taylor.

"Today I felt a lot better and I just kept her arm on the jab. I've had a lot of tough fights before but in a major championship I've never felt that way before. My main focus now is the Olympic Games and we will see what happens after that."

Meanwhile, Turkey's Gulson Tatar, who beat Ireland's Allana Murphy in the earlier rounds of the Championships, retained her light-welterweight title last evening.

China's Li Jinzi, who defeated Ireland's Sinead Kavanagh in the middleweight preliminaries, lost out to Mary Spencer of Canada in the 75Kg decider.

Ceire Smith was also in action for Ireland at the 6th AIBA Women's World Championships.