NYT's Barry Bearak was in Bray, Ireland, as an entire nation stopped to watch Katie Taylor win boxing gold. http://nyti.ms/MlTMpo
The New York Times 
Striking a Blow for Ireland
Murad Sezer/Reuters
Katie Taylor of Ireland jumped for joy after winning the gold medal in the lightweight division by beating Sofya Ochigava of Russia, 10-8.
By BARRY BEARAK
Published: August 9, 2012
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BRAY, Ireland — For the Irish, Katie Taylor is more than a great athlete sprung from the native soil; people speak of her as if she has sprung from themselves, for she seems everyone’s sister, their daughter, their friend. She is the epitome of the strong-willed Irish lass. She has known what she wants out of life: a gold medal in boxing. And she has gone for it.
Latest Results: Boxing
- Womenʼs 165 lbs.
●1 United States Shields●2 Russia Torlopova
- Womenʼs 132 lbs.
●1 Ireland Taylor●2 Russia Ochigava
Dennis M. Sabangan/European Pressphoto Agency
Katie Taylor, with the Irish flag, lobbied for years to make women’s boxing an Olympic event.
Perhaps not everyone here lives the way Katie does. She is, after all, a born-again Christian, a teetotaler and a boxer. But that does not seem to have kept her, at 26, from becoming a national sweetheart. The praise glides off people’s lips: genuine, hard-working, humble, never any shenanigans.
So around 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, all of Ireland seemed to shut down. People hurried off to their homes or to pubs or to restaurants, anywhere there was a TV. They were not just wishing and hoping and praying, either. They were expecting a victory. “In Katie We Trust,” the banners read. The gold medal just had to go Taylor’s way, didn’t it?
By 5:20, Ireland had its answer. Katie Taylor, the girl from Bray, four times a world champion in the lightweight division, five times the European champion, was also now an Olympic champion, beating Russia’s Sofya Ochigava in a nerve-racking 10-8 decision.
“It’s touch-and-go now,” fretted Bernie Shannon as the fourth and final round drew to a close. “Ah, the pain of it. Did she win? I don’t know.”
Shannon lives in County Clare, a four-hour drive from Bray, in County Wicklow. But like hundreds of people from Donegal and Limerick and Newcastle, she came to watch the fight here in Taylor’s hometown.
“It just feels the proper place to be,” said her husband, Mike.
The Shannons were standing with hundreds of others in the courtyard of a restaurant that looks out on the Irish Sea. There were similar gatherings up and down the promenade. The commuter trains from Dublin, 12 miles to the north, kept bringing throngs into the town.
Taylor rarely loses, but Ochigava had beaten her once. To the Irish, the Russian had cast herself as the heavy by claiming that Taylor’s opponents always begin 10 points in the hole.
“You know when you go boxing with Katie Taylor, you’re not boxing with her, you’re boxing with all the judges around the table, and it’s difficult boxing against the system,” Ochigava said.
The Irish announcers predicted a game of cat-and-mouse, with two crafty fighters stalking each other. Ochigava was ahead, 4-3, after two rounds, but in Round 3, Taylor struck at Ochigava with the careful aim of a pointillist painter to take the lead, 7-5.
Would Taylor be able to keep the lead for the final two minutes? Across Ireland, people chanted, “Katie, Katie, Katie.”
At the final bell, Taylor walked slowly to her corner and hugged her father, Peter Taylor, who is also her coach. The final outcome was uncertain, and when the referee raised Katie’s hand, the crowds in Bray responded with roars. Some wept.
“She has done Ireland proud,” a woman from Dublin named Mary Malloy said tearfully. “She is a legend now, and she’ll be one forever.”
Christy Core, a bus driver, said, “It’s a boost for all of us, and we sure needed it, with the recession and all.”
Taylor, who is usually not very demonstrative, strutted about the boxing ring and wrapped herself in the tricolor flag of Ireland.
When a microphone was held to her face, she said her dreams had been fulfilled “because of the grace of God in my life and because of Jesus in my life, and without him I’d be nothing really.”
The victory, only the ninth Olympic gold medal in Ireland’s history, comes like an inevitable cannon burst after years of drumroll.
This year, a story in The Irish Independent newspaper said Taylor was “as real as Mary Poppins, a fairy tale hurtling toward a happy ending.”
“In a world of loose teeth, black eyes and busted noses, Katie still comes across as the unblemished dream,” the paper said.
She seemed too good to be untrue
