Deirdre Gogarty: Meet the world champion who came before Katie Taylor
But when she was a pre-teen, none of these options were open to her. Boxing was not even in the Olympics.
Gogarty was 17 when she committed herself to boxing. She moved to Dublin from Meath to link up with coach Pat McCormack, and had been hiding an obsession for boxing from a young age.Ireland was traditionally conservative in their expectations of women, but Gogarty wanted something different. The Irish boxing authorities set her on a wild goose chase of passing a medical and when she found a doctor who signed her off to box, they suggested she become a judge or a referee.
So she moved 7,000km away from home to Louisiana, convincing a former sparring partner of Muhammad Ali, Beau Williford, to train her."I just had to keep going. I dedicated my whole life to it. I left my friends, family and country for it. I just felt I couldn't quit until I got that world title in my hands," Gogarty says.In 1996 more than a million people watched Gogarty fight American Christy Martin on the undercard of Mike Tyson's heavyweight contest against Frank Bruno.
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