World Champion: Magnificent Amy Broadhurst wins gold for Ireland in Istanbul: The Dundalk woman joins Katie Taylor

World champion: Magnificent Amy Broadhurst wins gold for Ireland in Istanbul: The Dundalk woman joins Katie Taylor, Michael Conlan and Kellie Harrington as a World Championship gold medal winner. IT WAS THE greatest half an hour of Irish boxing since Wayne McCullough and Michael Carruth claimed silver and gold respectively at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. On this occasion, however, both Irish protagonists took top honours: Amy Broadhurst and Lisa O’Rourke penned their names into this country’s short list of World Boxing Championship gold medal winners — which until this week included only Katie Taylor, Michael Conlan and Kellie Harrington. Three became five in Istanbul. Just minutes after Dundalk woman Broadhurst, 25, fairly handily beat Algerian opponent Imane Khelif on a 5-0 unanimous decision in their light-welterweight (63kg) decider, Roscommon’s O’Rourke earned a hard-fought 4-1 split over Mozambique’s Alcinda Panguane in the light-middleweight (70kg) showpiece. As well as gold medals, each fighter will take home with them €86,000 in prize money. Both Broadhurst and O’Rourke will also be granted funding of €40,000 from Sport Ireland next year, reward for a World Championship podium finish of any kind. The supremely talented southpaw Broadhurst counts in her personal trophy cabinet 19 Irish titles and five continental medals, including bronze at the 2019 Europeans as a fully fledged Elite. However, she has in recent years operated in the shadows of the world-ruling Harrington, who has Boradhurst’s preferred weight division of lightweight — 60kg, an Olympic category — locked down. Or at least, she had. With Olympic champ Harrington having been entered into these World Championships until an injury ruled her out days before the tournament, Broadhurst competed again up at light-welter, just as she did when she was controversially denied a medal at the 2018 Worlds. That quarter-final robbery in New Delhi is but a distant memory, now.