The Times - UK (2022-04-30)

reflecting the fundamentals of battle:

Serrano’s freshness and punching

power against Taylor’s supreme ring

craft while seeking to recapture her

best form. If the Irishwoman does so,

Serrano will encounter an opponent

operating at levels above anything she

has faced.

Serrano also presents one of the

few remaining challenges capable of

stirring the lion within Taylor. A calf

injury that bothered her in previous

bouts has cleared up. The word

seeping from Taylor’s training camp

near her home in Connecticut has

been positive. “You could hit her with

seven kitchen sinks, she’d take it and

throw eight back,” her sparring

partner Amy Broadhurst said.

“You get to know Katie over the

years,” Hearn said, “and the one thing

I know is she’s not messing around.

This is her Garden. This is her house.

These are the moments you see her at

her very best.”

In a sporting life dedicated to

scaling every peak, there’s one more

left to climb.

marginal underdog. Serrano’s record

is almost impeccable: 42 wins

from 44 fights with a single

defeat. Since surviving

two brutal encounters

with Delfine Persoon

in 2020, Taylor has

looked flat, defeating a

succession of

mediocre opponents

to preserve her 20-0

record.

Of Serrano’s 42

victories, 20 have been

achieved by knockout. Taylor

has stopped opponents only six times,

London. She had staked her entire life
on that outcome, her gold
medal enshrining her as a
national hero in Ireland.
Serrano is celebrated
in a similar way by the
vast Puerto Rican
community in her
home suburb of
Bushwick, a half-hour
subway ride from
Madison Square Garden
in Brooklyn. And in
nearly 20 years’ boxing, she
is the first fighter to have
demoted Taylor to the role of

Katie Taylor

v Amanda

Serrano

From 12.30am (main event

ringwalk 3.15am).

Full coverage

on DAZN

defeat Jennifer Han in December but Serrano, left, offers a different proposition

Tale of the tape

Katie

Taylor

Amanda

Serrano

Irish

Orthodox

Nationality

Stance

Puerto

Rican

Southpaw

Age

Height

Weight

Reach

Fights

Wins

Knockouts

Draws

Losses

Pro debut

Last fight

35 33

20 43

5ft 5in 5ft 5.5in

66in 65.5in

v K Szmalenberg

(Nov 2016)

Won

v J Trivilino

(Mar 2009)

Won

v F Sharipova

(Dec 2021)

Won

v M Gutierrez

(Dec 2021)

Won

9st 9lb

42

30

20

6

0

01

1

8st 9lb

the times | Saturday April 30 2022 1GS 23

Boxing Sport

MARK ROBINSON/MATCHROOM BOXING

Reekie: The agony of

losing out by 0.09sec

was best thing for me

An Olympic medal can be worth

hundreds of thousands of pounds over

an athletics career. It is a passport to

better shoe deals and the bigger meets.

And there is the perma-sheen of glory.

Jemma Reekie missed all this by

0.09sec. “It was hard,” she says with

some understatement.

Reekie is still only 24, but she was lost

in a middle-distance medal rush in

Tokyo. Keely Hodgkinson, only 19, won

the silver in that race. Laura Muir, her

training partner, friend and former flat-

mate also ended years of near-missing

by taking the silver in the 1,500m, while

Josh Kerr did likewise in the men’s

event, gaining a first GB gong in that

arena since Peter Elliott in 1988. A duel

with Muir over 1,500m on May 21 has

just been confirmed as one of the high-

lights of the Muller Birmingham Dia-

mond League.

Few may remember that it was Reek-

ie who went after Athing Mu, the peer-

less American teenage

champion, in Tokyo. It

was all or nothing and

she was second off

the bend. Then

Hodgkinson

passed her. She

was still in the

medals with ten

metres to go but wilting

under her own bravery.

She was pipped on the

line. A metre short of

the podium.

“I think I move on

from things quite

well,” she says. “I

managed to get excited

again quickly and thought,

‘OK, I’ve come fourth —

what can I do now?’ I’ve

changed a few things in

training.”

Such as? “I’d never really lifted

weights before. The experience has

made me stronger and it could be the

best thing that could have happened in

the long run. Keely is amazing and she

deserved all the attention she got [but]

it’s good to have her and to push each

other on.”

As for Mu, a lustrous talent who

Michael Johnson believes will domi-

nate for a decade, she says: “Nobody’s

unbeatable. Keely was close last year so

I look at that. There were a few races

last year where I felt I was the only

athlete trying to chase her down and I

will try again. If you can go and com-

pete with people like that, it’s only going

to do you good.”

It is two years since Reekie signalled

her arrival by breaking three British

indoor records in eight days, and her

attempts to exorcise Tokyo ghosts have

been hampered by food poisoning and

then the glandular fever ruled her out

of the World Indoor Championships

last month. “I was really exhausted and

my energy levels were dropping. I’d had

glandular fever really bad when I

was young and I didn’t get the

normal sore throat. So we did

lots of tests and there were a

couple of weeks of not know-

ing, making sure the food poi-

soning was out of my system.”

It has not been an ideal build-

up to a summer like no other

in athletics. Pandemic

postponements mean

there are three major

events — the World

Championships, a home

Commonwealth Games

and the European Champi-

onships — within six

weeks, and Reekie

sounds greedy.

“When I stand on

the start line

every one knows I go out

and try to win.” Her goal is

simple: “As many medals as

I can get.”

For Reekie fourth was only

a start. “I know I was capable

of more than that,” she says.

Athletics

Rick Broadbent

Reekie will take

on Muir next

month

d