(SEPT 21)   Mary Kom from India today took a fifth AIBA World Championship title at the Garfield Sobers Sports Complex in Barbados Saturday, beating Romania's Steluta Duta convincingly to take the light flyweight title. Ireland's Katie Taylor proved quick to recover from yesterday's shake-up against Queen Underwood of the USA and stormed ahead to an 18:5 victory against China's Dong Cheng in a repeat of the 2008 final in Ningbo. She also picked up her second consecutive best boxer award.

Kom was overcome with emotion after her win. "I would like to thank my husband and my sponsor for both giving me the will power and encouraging me. I'm really really happy and I thank God," she said. Kom won her first title in 2001, at the age of 18 and has now taken gold medals at the past four AIBA Women's World Championships.

There was a large Irish contingent supporting Katie Taylor in the arena and the 24-year-old was happy enough to pick up individual points against Dong in the early stages of her final, then surged ahead in the second round to finish eight points clear. But even with such a wide leading margin, it is in her nature to attack and she extended her lead further in the third and fourth rounds to close out the bout 18:5.

"Yesterday I had to give credit to Queen Underwood. She boxed really well," said the Bray woman. "She made it very hard for me and I felt very tired in the ring. Today I felt a lot better and I just kept her arm on the jab. I've had a lot of tough fights before but in a major championship I've never felt that way before. My main focus now is the Olympic Games and we will see what happens after that."

China's Ren Cancan made it a double by beating Nicola Adams from England in the flyweight final 10:5 and Russia's Elena Savelyeva took the bantamweight title after beating North Korea's Kim Hye Song 7:3.

But North Korea did secure a gold in the featherweight contest, when Yun Kum Ju beat rival Yang Yanzi 7:4

Reigning European Women's Champion Gulsum Tatar added a second consecutive world title to her belt today with a clear 13:1 victory over Russia's Vera Slugina in the light welterweight division.

In the day's closest contest, Andrecia Wasson of the USA edged ahead to a 5:4 victory over Savannah Marshall from England. Marshall was slow to get going, landing her first scoring punches only in the third round and leaving it too late to claw back the deficit.

After taking the title in the 66kg category in 2008, Mary Spencer of Canada today added the world middleweight (75kg) title to her medal haul by eliminating China's last medal hope, Li Jinzi. China had put four boxers through to the final but only Ren managed to secure a gold medal.

Brazil confirmed its status as an emerging power in world boxing for both men and women today when PanAmerican Champion Roseli Feitosa comprehensively defeated Kazakhstan's Marina Volnova 12:3 to claim the light heavyweight title.

In an unusual end to the competition, Kateryna Kuzhel's corner threw in the towel in the second round of the contest against Russia's Nadezhda Torlopova, handing the Russian the heavyweight title after only three minutes of boxing.