BOXING:FOLLOWING WHAT is probably the least surprising sports result of the year, Katie Taylor's victory in the World Championship lightweight final in China on Saturday has again raised Irish hopes that she will travel to the 2012 games in London as the country's brightest medal prospect.

But the Bray champion will have an anxious 10-month wait before she knows if her ambitions to fight in the Olympics will become a reality.

"To represent my country at the Olympic Games would be a dream come through and if I do get the opportunity I will be going for gold, to finish first is always my aim. Hopefully, the IOC will sanction it. I thought that women's boxing was going to be sanctioned for Beijing but it didn't happen and everyone involved with the sport was devastated.

"Now were are told that women's boxing will be introduced in London in 2012, but I won't believe it until I see it officially in writing."

What chance she has of travelling to London as Ireland's representative in women's boxing will now, according to Pat Hickey, president of the European Olympic Associations, rest with a decision to be taken at an IOC Congress meeting next September in Copenhagen.

"I will be lobbying very hard to have women's boxing included in the London Games in 2012," Hickey said yesterday.

Taylor was ultimately a comfortable 13-2 winner over the host nation's Cheng Dong but admitted she was nervous beforehand about facing a Chinese fighter in China in a major final.

She said: "The Olympic final crossed my mind and I was thinking of Ken Egan as I believe he won that fight and that he should have won the gold medal in Beijing. I had the feeling that if I got to the final that I would meet a Chinese and that made me nervous, to tell the truth, because of the scoring in the Olympic final.

"But it all worked out fantastic in the end and the final was a lot easier than I thought it would be and maybe that's some payback for Irish boxing for the Olympic final."

Her gold medal in Ningbo City over the weekend followed on from European and World gold at the last two events, making the Bray boxer easily the most successful athlete Ireland has at world level.

Following months of canvassing and discussion about permitting boxing into the Olympic schedule the International Boxing Association (AIBA) finally sent an application on October 20th to the IOC seeking its inclusion.

Boxing, however, is not competing with other sports, such as rugby or golf, for entry into the games, as the sport is already part of the program. Rugby and golf are seeking to become a new part of the Olympic schedule, while boxing is seeking to amend their program.

At the moment boxing has 11 men's events and 286 competitors and somewhat controversially, several weight categories in the men's division will probably have to be eliminated if the women's event is to become part of the schedule. The IOC has capped the number of medal events across all sports at a maximum of 301.

The Olympic Programme Commission is expected to take up the application before making its recommendation to the IOC's ruling Executive Board and the point that will forcefully made to them will be that boxing is the only sport, among 26 approved for the London Games, that does not have women's events.

Women's boxing was a demonstration event at the 1904 Olympics in St Louis but because of gender prejudice, contemporary sporting fashions and Victorian thinking, it largely disappeared until 1994 when the international amateur association recognised it.

The current AIBA president, Wu Ching-Kuo, has also led a wide range of reforms to clean up amateur boxing's image and is hopeful that the IOC will approve his proposal.

"The level of boxing is very high, very good," Wu said. "Many of our federations have asked us to support women's boxing in the Olympics. We hope we'll soon have the women competing there. Boxing is the only sport in the Olympic program without women and we believe we are ready."

The AIBA has approved and governed women's boxing since 1994, establishing its women's committee a decade ago and holding world championship tournaments and regional events. Those tournaments would serve as Olympic qualifiers if the sport is put on the London program.

KATIE TAYLOR WORLD CHAMPION

Born: 1986.

Weight Division: Lightweight.

Tournament wins: 2005 (Norway) European Amateur Champion; 2006 (Poland) European Amateur Champion; 2006 (India) World Amateur Champion; 2007 (Denmark) European Amateur Champion; 2008 (China) World Amateur Champion