Irish boxer Katie Taylor has crashed out of Rio 2016 at the quarter-final stage to Mira Potkonen of Finland. Taylor, the London 2012 gold medal winner in the women’s light 60kg division, came into the bout as the favourite for Olympic gold but will now leave Rio 2016 without a medal.

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In an extremely tight fight, 35-year-old Potkonen won on a split decision. The Ecuadorean judge Clemente Carrillo scored a 38-38 draw before ultimately deciding in favour of the Finnish underdog.

“It was a very close fight,” said an emotional and disappointed Taylor. “It's very hard to talk about it. Congratulations to her but I should really be beating those girls.”

Taylor has endured a difficult year both in the ring and outside of it. Over the course of this season, her coach and father Peter Taylor has stepped away from training her and he was not in her corner this morning. The head of high performance for Irish boxing, Billy Walsh, also left the camp to join the USA boxing programme.

Taylor (red) dodges a right hook (Photo: Getty Images/Julian Finney)

Within the ring this year, in April Taylor lost her first fight since 2011 against Azerbaijan's Yana Alekseeva in the European Olympic qualifiers. She then went on to lose in the semi-final of the world championships in May in another split decision.

That second defeat was her first world championship loss in a decade. She won five successive world titles between 2006 and 2012. Here at Rio 2016, she has fallen at the first hurdle.

“It's been a very, very tough year for sure, very challenging year,” she said. “So many losses that I'm sick of losing at this stage this year. I don't know what I'm doing wrong really.

"I really felt that I was prepared for every opponent here this week. I really feel I should be winning those fights a lot easier but it just didn't happen and I'm not sure what the problem is yet.”

Having received a bye straight through to the quarter-final stage, this was Taylor’s first fight of Rio 2016. Had she won, she would have been assured at least Olympic bronze. The disappointment for the reigning London 2012 champion was palpable at the end of the contest.

“She didn't show me anything new at all,” Taylor said about the woman who knocked her from competition. “I've boxed her many times before. It's just very, very disappointing. Everyone knows how much the Olympics means to me. I was well prepared going into the fight and I left no stone unturned in preparation for this competition and I really believed that I'd come home with a gold medal but it wasn't to be.”

Potkonen now advances to the semi-finals on 17 August and was ecstatic with her victory over Taylor.

"I have lost so many times to her, so it’s great," she said. "I was not confident. I am always scared while waiting."

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