Joe Carroll: Titles keep flowing Olympic hopeful Amy’s way
Amy Broadhurst chatted with this paper just over a couple of years ago. She said she hoped to make the Irish team going to the Olympics in Tokyo, but knew it was a long-shot.
In pole position was Kellie Harrington. Both girls fought at the same weight and that made it more difficult for Dundalk-born Broadhurst. Harrington was more experienced and had several titles to her credit. She got the nod.
The Dubliner justified her selection. Turning in a whole sequence of impressive fights, she struck Gold and as you would expect from her inner-city base, was given a tremendous reception on her arrival home.
One year on and Harrington is still winning. But so, too, is Broadhurst, maybe even more. She’s a World champion and having been aligned to a club in County Down qualified to fight in the Commonwealth Games. She won there as well.
Then there was the call-up to spar with Katie Taylor prior to the Bray girl’s World title fight with Armanda Serrano in Madison Square Garden last year.
The girls weren’t meeting for the first time. There’d been a surprise meeting in Dundalk’s Colaiste Ris, when, on the invitation of the school authorities, Taylor turned up to make a presentation to Broadhurst soon after she had won her first European title.
The European titles continue to flow the Dundalk girl’s way. Only last week in Montenegro she added another to her rich haul, winning decisively even though she wasn’t fighting at her optimum weight. She’s most comfortable at 60kg, but that’s in Harrington’s bailiwick, and it was at 3kg higher that Broadhurst weighed in.
She couldn’t have done it more decisively, especially in the bout that counted. Taking on Ukrainian Mariia Bova, she had charge from the first bell, and after forcing her opponent to take a standing count, she as good as had the Gold in safe-keeping after just one round.
The fight went the distance, and afterwards it was revealed that the girl in the blue singlet had been given each round by the five judges. It was a victory that contributed to the 25-year-old being named boxer of the tournament, overshadowing among others Harrington and a third Irish Gold winner, Aoife O’Rourke.
Paris hosts the Olympics – for the third time – in 2024. Who knows what might happen before then – Harrington could turn professional, maybe even Broadhurst.
But if she is still in the unpaid ranks - and Harrington as well –it’s hard to imagine Miss Amy not becoming the first athlete from the town since Dan Coyle competed in the Hammer in London in 1948 to wear the Ireland green.