O’Reilly makes history with Irish boxing success

NEWLY crowned National Elite Senior lightweight champion Debbie O’Reilly – who has become the first woman outside of Olympic gold medallist Katie Taylor to claim the Irish 60kg belt – has spoken of how she had to drag herself out of the bed hours before her title fight after suffering food poisoning earlier in the week.

Olympic Boxing Club’s O’Reilly created her own piece of history when she became the first female Galway boxer to win a senior title at the National Stadium in Dublin on Saturday night, defeating favourite Louise Donoghue of Geesala in the decider on a unanimous decision.

However, the true mark of Galway’s newest boxing champion may not have been her exertions inside the ring but outside, with Rahoon native O’Reilly having to come through a bout of food poisoning to don the gloves for the biggest fight of her sporting career to date.

“Yeah, I was actually sick during the week, would you believe,” says the 26-year-old who only last year was crowned All-Ireland intermediate champion “On Wednesday night, I had food poisoning and I was really unwell and we thought I might have to pull out of the fight.

“On Saturday morning, I still wasn’t well and I went back to bed for the day. When I got up, I just said there was no way [I wasn’t going to fight]. Training Christmas morning and all that, it wasn’t going to mean nothing and I wasn’t going to give it all up.

“So, I knew going in I would have to give it my all and fight with my heart because I knew I was going to be a little bit tired. My energy levels were going to be down. Thankfully, it went really well and I got the unanimous decision. I was delighted,” beams the paramedic.

Full report in this week’s Galway City Tribune