Katie Taylor bounces back to win European box-off and simplify her road to Rio

The Olympic champion recovered from Friday's stunning defeat to win today's box-off at the European Championships.

Katie Taylor bounced back from her first defeat in five years, a semi-final loss to Yana Alekseevna, by dominating Bulgarian Svetlana Staneva to claim third place in Turkey. Taylor won a unanimous points decision and while she must still wait until next month's world championships in Kazakhstan to make sure of her place at this summer's Rio Games, today's win improved her chances of qualification. A semi-final place in Astana will be enough to assure Taylor of the chance to defend her London 2012 title, but she will now also claim an Olympic berth if either new European champion Alekseevna or runner-up Irma Testa reach the last four.