Katie Taylor on winning Olympic gold, huge support and staying amateur

Katie Taylor: The London Olympics surpassed all her dreams

It has surpassed all my dreams really and it's been amazing since I got back from the Games.

At the same time though, I am actually quite looking forward to getting back to some sort of normality now too!

When I look back at the Games, one of the main things which I am still surprised about is the amount of support I got throughout my whole Olympic journey. I couldn't believe it really. In the ExCeL Arena, I think there were 9,000 Irish people for my final- it was just incredible!

When I got back to my home town there were thousands of people waiting for me at the homecoming parade too, so it has just been a complete dream. The support from everyone has been unbelievable and I can't thank everybody enough.

It really has been an amazing time for me.

Aside from the Olympic buzz and celebrations, I managed to get away to Alicante for two weeks with my family when I got back from London and that was great. It was nice to spend some time with them; it was really relaxing which was lovely after the full-on summer.

Raising the profile

Since the Games themselves, I have already noticed more interest surrounding women's boxing which is great. I think Nicola Adams was absolutely phenomenal as well for Great Britain and I think she was on the front/back page of every English newspaper after the final and I was on the front page of every Irish newspaper- who would have thought this would have happened before?

I think people really were shocked by the standard of the sport and it opened their eyes to women's boxing.

This is only the start though, hopefully the next generation of boxers coming up will still have so many great things to look forward to and they don't have to go through the same struggles that we had to go through really.

The London Games were unbelievable for the sport and its development.

Going forward for me now though, I have made an important decision- I am going to stay amateur and hopefully defend my title in four years' time!

I have been offered a few pro contracts over the past few weeks but I just felt there's nothing better than boxing for your country and bringing home medals and hopefully I can continue that.

After London, I want that feeling again! I have never experienced anything like that ever before in my life and I just want a lot more of that now. It is the pinnacle of any athlete's career, to box at the Olympic Games and bring home a gold medal.

I shall speak to you all soon!