Katie Taylor bids farewell in historic Croke Park bout, cementing boxing legacy

On a Saturday evening in Dublin, Katie Taylor — who once hid her identity to enter a sport that refused her — will step into Croke Park's ring for the last time before 80,000 of her countrypeople, closing a career that did not merely reflect the changing place of women in sport but actively forced that change into being. She is 40, a world champion and Olympic gold medallist, and her farewell fight against unbeaten French champion Flora Pili sold out in 17 minutes — faster, perhaps, than history usually moves. What gathers at Croke Park is not simply a sporting occasion but a communal reckonin