World Championships medal the main priority for Amy Broadhurst following maiden Elite title

Having collected her first National Elite title on Saturday night, Amy Broadhurst instantly set her sights on a dream World Championships medal.

The Dundalk favourite was left devastated after she was denied the chance to medal in women’s boxing’s toughest tournament last year after a controversial defeat to Indian home favourite Simranjit Kaur at the quarter-final stage in New Delhi last November.

She is now determined to right that wrong and deliver on the promise she has shown throughout her young career in 2019.

Now having won her seventeenth Irish title, but her first at Senior Elite level thanks to victory over Moira McElligott on Seniors final night, Broadhurst wants a world medal to add to the collection.

They 21-year-old may get her chance sooner than expected, with the Worlds taking place in consecutive years following a calendar change and she is hoping to be on the plane to the Russian city of Ulan-Ude later this year.

“Honestly all I wanted all my life was to win a World medal,” the Dealgan and Islington fighter told Irish-Boxing.com.

“From a junior to now I have beaten fighters with world medals, but I haven’t got one yet. It frustrates me, so when I lost for the bronze medal I was devastated. That’s the dream now get a World medal make that step up.”

“This year has started brilliantly I have my first National Elite title now and hopefully I get my first World medal,” explained the fighter who was also denied at the quarter-final stage at Junior and Youth level in 2013 and 2015 respectively.

The year did start perfectly for southpaw Broadhurst as she collected the main domestic prize at the third time of asking.

Admittedly she was prevented in doing so at the second time of asking by now World champion Kelly Harrington, but she claims she never felt she would have had to wait so long to be standing at the top of the National Stadium podium on Senior finals night.

Having collected underage medals at a record-breaking pace, ‘Baby Canelo’ expected she would continue her run of success when she stepped up to senior level, but learnt fast that there is some learning to be done when mixing it with older fighters of considerable talent.

“I dominated as a junior and a youth so I thought it was be the same in the seniors, but it’s a completely different level. I lost my semi final [to Shauna O’Keefe] two years ago, I lost my final last year. I had to adapt and I gradually built up and now I have my title.”

Being one of the bigger names on the domestic scene at present, there is always a degree of pressure on the Louth favourite.

However, that pressure was added to by the fact she was desperate to win a senior title and after recently being voted Dundalk’s greatest ever sports star

Broadhurst admitted that “this whole weekend has been very hard to deal with. Just before we come into this fight the my town voted me the greatest sports person ever and then I am trying to win my first Elite title. Thank God I did it. It might take a few days to sink in.”

“I wasn’t really thinking about my seventeenth Irish title but the fact it was my first Elite and last year didn’t go my way there was a lot on it. I wanted to get in and perform, especially with such a big crowd. I think I could have performed better, but I suppose I have the title that is the main thing.”

Broadhurst claimed 64kg success at the weekend, but her more natural weight is 60kg. However, that is the weight where world #1 Harrington campaigns as she has elected to stay at the higher weight and try secure success in major international tournaments this year – leaving Harrington free to try and qualify for the Olympics.

A non-Olympic class, this leaves Broadhurst out of the loop for funding and unable to go to the European Games which only features the five Olympic weights.

However, there is still experience to be gained via the European and World Championships this year, should she be selected, as well as the European Under-22s next week in Vladikavkaz, Russia where she will look to claim a second successive lightweight gold medal.

“For this year I will stay 64kg and then at the end of the year we will see how things went for me and then maybe we will see if 60kg is an option,” she outlined, leaving the door open to a potential showdown with Harrington in 2020 should the Dubliner fail to achieve Olympic qualification this year.

Broadhurst would quickly snap out of this long-term view and joked that “you’re making me think way to far ahead now!”

“Hopefully I will be picked for the Europeans and World Championships.”

Photo Credit: Ricardo Guglielminotti – The Fighting Irish (@ThefIrish)