Katie Taylor’s charge for a sixth World Championship title in a row ended in a split-decision defeat to Estelle Mossely in the semi-finals in Astana.
Having secured a spot at Rio with her win in the last round, the Bray boxer had her eye on gold but her French rival to got the nod on a 2-1 scoreline.
Taylor was hoping to join Dublin’s Kellie Harrington, who won through to the light-welterweight final with an impressive win over Canada’s Sara Cali earlier today, in tomorrow’s finals sessions.
Mossely, who had beaten Taylor's Olympic qualifier conqueror Yana Alekseevna in the quarter-finals, took the initiative from the start and tagged the Olympic champion with a couple of shots that shocked her into action.
Taylor responded by landing some straight-arm jabs that impressed the judges, who gave her the first round 10:9.
The Wicklow lightweight got in close to Mossely in the second, and seemed to have done enough to edge it but two of the judges awarded the round to the French woman.
By the third round Mossely, who had lost to Taylor on each of their three previous meetings, looked to be in control, with the title holder looking tired after a series of skirmishes.
But somehow all the cards read 10:9 to the Irish boxer and it meant that Mossely would have to chase the final round.
The 29-year-old Irish champion seemed to have held her own in the fourth and earned a place in the decider, however, two of the judges gave the round to Mossely.
With their scorecards now level at 38-38 apiece, both awarded the fight to the French fighter, over-ruling the judge who gave all four rounds to Taylor.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport after the fight, a clearly disappointed Taylor said: “It’s the semi-final of the World Championship so there’s no easy fights at this stage. I’m just very disappointed.
“I didn’t really know what way it was going, you don’t get any scores in between rounds. We thought that things were going to plan.
“I’m not sure, it’s hard to say just right after the fight.
“We’ll have to look back at the video and see what went wrong.
“I was planning to come over here and make history by becoming a six-time world champion but unfortunately it didn’t happen for me.”
Asked if she had any concerns about the judges' scoring, which puzzled the RTÉ boxing panel of Mick Dowling and Michael Carruth, Taylor said: “I thought every round was very close, that’s the way it goes.
“I suppose it is a positive to take that I qualified for Rio but that was only the job half done.
“I wanted to come out and come home with a gold medal.”
RTÉ analyst Mick Dowling 'shocked' by @KatieTaylor loss https://t.co/nRRlrR3sno #rtesport #AIBAstana2016https://t.co/M92uFD2waM
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) May 26, 2016
