She said: "Definitely the next few years is going to be far more competitive.

"They are going to be pumping the money into women's boxing.

"The Chinese and the Russians are always strong anyway.

"They're going to get stronger and stronger in the next few years.

"I have to keep improving with them, so it is going to be a great challenge the next few years."

Peter Taylor, Katie's father, also warned that it was going to be tougher to compete with the Chinese and Russians because they have been investing in women's boxing longer than any other country.

He said: "China and Russia have predicted this [the introduction of women's boxing into the Olympics] for the last seven or eight years; they thought it was going to be in Beijing [last year].

"So, they have been pumping money into it anyway.

"The Chinese and the Russians are always the strongest competitors.

"I think the competition has always been fierce.

"They had great foresight on this and have developed it already; we kind of missed the train a little bit.

"It only narrowly failed for Beijing, so was obviously going to get into London.

"We should have pumped money into it."

Peter Taylor also predicted that Britain are an emerging country in women's boxing.

He said: "We boxed against England three years ago.

"The Irish squad beat them in every fight, and they've progressed a lot from that now.

"They've been banging money into it."


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