Katie Taylor has tightened her grip on the number one spot in the AIBA World rankings.

 

 

Katie Taylor has consolidated her position as the number one female lightweight in the World.

The four-time World champion has jumped from 2,000 points to 3,200 points at the top of the lightweight table in the newly released AIBA World rankings for May.

Taylor, Darren O’Neill, Paddy Barnes and John Joe Nevin, all of whom have qualified for the 2012 Olympics, are ranked in the top six in their weight categories.

Michael Conlan and Adam Nolan have also qualified for the Olympics. Conlan has moved up two places from 14 to 12 in the flyweight class.

O’Neill, who will captain the Irish boxing team at the 30th Olympiad, and Nevin remain unchanged at number 3 and 4 at middleweight and bantamweight.

Barnes, a bronze medal winner at the 2008 Olympics, moves up one place from 7 to 6 in the rankings which are based on performances at AIBA tournaments.

 

John Joe Nevin and Darren O’Neill

 

The Belfast dynamo’s improvement is welcome news for Irish boxing as the top six male boxers (and top two female boxers) in each of the 13 weight categories will be seeded at London 2012.

Taylor, who has been ranked number one since 2006, is now 1,700 rankings points ahead of World number 2, Gulsum Tatar of Turkey, who is hoping to get an invitation place for the Olympics.

Russia’s Sofya Ochigava, who Taylor beat in the 60kg World Championship final in China last month, has improved 7 places in the rankings table and is at number 3 on 1.400 points.

Ray Moylette, the current European light-welterweight champion, remains unchanged at 8, but Joe Ward, the current European light-heavyweight champion, has dropped two places to number five in the World.

Russia’s Egor Mekhomstev, Australia’s Damien Hooper and China’s Fanlong Meng, who have all been beaten by Ward in the last two years, are ranked above the Moate BC southpaw.

Please see below attachment for current AIBA World Men’s and Women’s rankings.

http://www.aiba.org/default.aspx?pId=4248#