Nick Potts / PA Nick Potts / PA / PA

BACK IN AUGUST 2012, five-year-old Ella Sherlock was in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin for a bone marrow transplant.

That same month, Katie Taylor had beaten Russia’s Sofya Ochigava to win a gold medal for Ireland in the London Olympics. Just over a week later, Katie was visiting sick children in Crumlin with her medal when she crossed paths with Ella.

Ella was being treated in isolation following her transplant, so Katie and her could only press their hands up against the glass

RollingNews.ie / Mark Steadman RollingNews.ie / Mark Steadman / Mark Steadman

It was a lovely photo, and made the front pages of the next day’s papers – natural, as the afterglow of Katie Taylor’s gold medal glory was the talk of the country.

Ella fought through the transplant to recover and, thanks to an email from her dad John this week, finally got to meet Katie properly for the first time at an event last night.

And they simply had to put their hands together and get a photo for comparison

John Sherlock John Sherlock

Brilliant.

Speaking to DailyEdge.ie, dad John explained how the picture came about:

I emailed Katie’s team to see if we could meet up, and they were able to arrange that for us, which was great. It also meant that our son Scott (Ella’s donor) was able to meet Katie, he missed her the first time and been hearing about it ever since. He was three at the time, just old enough to donate.

Ever since their famous photo together, Ella has been a fan of Katie’s boxing:

Ella keeps an eye on Katie’s movements and what she’s doing. She has this connection with her, seeing as they shared the front of the newspaper together.

Katie even reached out to John to say Ella’s appearance last night was a great moment for her:

Twitter Twitter

And it’s John’s original tweet that sums up the situation best:

5 years later 2 fighters finally meet

with reporting by Valerie Loftus

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