Amy Broadhurst will never forget the piece of boxing history she delivered for Northern Ireland.
Broadhurst repelled the pressure of arriving in Birmingham as lightweight world champion and favourite to become the first Northern Irish woman to claim boxing gold at the Commonwealth Games with a unanimous points victory over England’s Gemma Richardson.
However, an unprecedented double is not enough to satisfy the bullish Broadhurst as she immediately set her sights on a hat-trick by adding the European crown to her collection.
She said: “It's incredible and I've made history as well in being the first female boxer from Northern Ireland to win the Commonwealth gold medal for boxing.
“To have that behind me, knowing that I've made that sort of history is something I'll be proud of for as long as I remember.
“It’s unbelievable to do the double but I'll be very happy by the end of the year when I've done the treble with the Europeans coming up.
“I'm not looking to stop here and I'm pretty confident there'll be more gold medals in the future.”
This summer, Team Northern Ireland, supported by funding raised by National Lottery players, will compromise of over 100 athletes, all vying for medal success.
Broadhurst, who idolises Mexican great Canelo Alvarez, was pleased to show off her versatility and full repertoire of weapons as she silenced the English crowd with several brutal body shots to get the edge over Richardson.
She said: “I got in today and I did something different than the other two days, so I've proved in this competition that I can do everything.
“If I need to go out and box, I can box. If I need to fight, I can fight. That's one thing that I'm taking away from this performance is that I'm not just a one trick pony.”
Broadhurst is from Dundalk on the southern side of the border but said she wouldn’t pay any attention to her detractors with tears filling her eyes on top of the podium as Londonderry Air was played in front of a packed-out NEC.
She explained: “It's been on my mind for a year and a half now to come and win a Commonwealth gold medal and I know I'm going to have people who are going to downgrade it by saying I'm not from the North.
“But if I wasn't meant to be here, I wouldn't be here. So I deserve to be here just as much as everybody else. I've trained very hard for this Commonwealth gold medal and to have it now is amazing.”
National Lottery players raise more than £30million a week for good causes including vital funding into sport – from grassroots to elite. Find out how your numbers make amazing happen at: www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk and get involved by using the hashtag: #TNLAthletes.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here