'Every girl now wants to be a boxer': Katie Taylor's home town buzzes ahead of farewell fight

Katie Taylor, the 40-year-old super-lightweight champion and Olympic gold medallist, will step into the ring for the last time as a professional on Saturday at Croke Park in Dublin, where roughly 80,000 spectators are expected to attend. She will defend her titles against Flora Pili, an unbeaten French fighter who holds the IBO world super-lightweight title and has won all 12 of her professional bouts.

Tickets for the event sold out within 17 minutes of going on sale in June. Musical acts including Westlife will perform as part of the night, and national broadcaster RTÉ will air the fight free to air so it can be watched in homes and pubs across the country. The last time Croke Park hosted a boxing match was in 1972, when Muhammad Ali fought there.

In Taylor's home town of Bray, County Wicklow, vendors have been selling Taylor-branded hats, flags and posters, with locals describing brisk business ahead of the fight. Residents say Taylor has inspired a generation of girls and young women to take up boxing and other sports, opportunities that were previously far less accessible to them.

Taylor began boxing as a child, trained by her father, Pete, at a modest gym known locally as the Tin Can. Because women and girls were banned from boxing in Ireland and the UK at the time, she competed disguised as a boy under the name "K Taylor". In 2001, when she was 15, father and daughter helped persuade Irish authorities to lift the ban, and later played a role in getting women's boxing added to the Olympic Games. Taylor won Olympic gold in London in 2012 and went on to headline Madison Square Garden, including an acclaimed trilogy of fights against Amanda Serrano.

At the Liberty Boxing gym run by her brother-in-law Trevor McMahon, the venue is packed whenever Taylor returns to train during visits home. McMahon said Taylor has always shown total dedication and is determined to add another title before retiring.

Many in Bray hope that, once her boxing career ends, Taylor will finally get to enjoy a quieter life after decades of trailblazing achievement in the sport.