Nicola Adams wins historic first women's Olympic boxing gold
• Team GB boxer beats three-times world champion Ren Cancan
• The flyweight wants to defend her London 2012 title in Rio
Nicola Adams is a flat-footed asthmatic, a bubbling flyweight confection of unaffected charisma who makes every room and boxing ring she enters her personal property with a smile of serious wattage. She is as normal as a cup of tea and more special than she might ever have imagined, never more so than when holding an Olympic gold medal on Thursday night, a first among firsts, not only breaking the duck for the Great Britain squad at these Games but leading the way for her sport.
Hours later it was still hanging from her neck, a reminder of the heroics she performed over eight minutes in front of 16,000 throat-sore converts to her discipline in the ExCeL, as she emphatically turned back the challenge of China's Ren Cancan, knocking the three-times world champion on her backside along the way, to win 16-7.
"It hasn't sunk in yet," Adams said, the ritual response to the ritual question. "Maybe later, when I might even have a few drinks … Why not, eh?"
Her laughter filled the room, just as her punches had filled the ring. This was not the conclusion of her story but certainly the highest point to date. She says there is more to come.
"How cool would it to be to win two Olympic gold medals? It's never been done in our sport before, so I am going to go for it." Clearly, becoming the first woman to win an Olympic boxing gold medal has tapped into the natural energy of this very fine athlete.
There were no dreams, though, just an instinct that boxing and her were meant for each other, when her mother, Denver, took a then 12-year-old Nicola to the gym in Leeds 17 years ago. It was not to mould a champion, Denver said, but to "give her something to do".
The journey to the podium in east London on Thursday night has taken in the struggle against resistance to even her presence in the male preserve of boxing and a back injury that laid her out for three months in 2009 after she had tumbled down the stairs at home and endured the rehab that shaped her into the champion she is at 29.
"Now I will aim at Rio in 2016," she said, still struggling to take in the magnitude of her achievement but conscious of her contribution to women's boxing. "Knowing that young girls might be inspired to take up the sport is as good as winning this medal," she added, still clinging to the gold that will define her forever.
"I would love it if there were girls who watched that fight and thought, 'Yes, I can do that.' I got my inspiration when I sat down with my father, at about eight or nine years old, and watched The Rumble in the Jungle. It was amazing watching Muhammad Ali. I watched tapes of Sugar Ray Robinson too – what a terrific left hook.
"I hope, too, that winning here will inspire the rest of the guys and we can get even more gold. I will tell them to relax, keep their focus and they are bound to box at their best. It has been great working with all of them."
But the smiling star from Yorkshire – "Northerners, eh?" she laughed – is more than just a boxer, although she is supremely gifted at that, and she was only half-joking when she said later that winning this medal may well get her some bigger acting parts than those she has had as an extra in Coronation Street and Emmerdale.
She was headed for a night out with family and friends, then would make plans for a holiday, "although I don't know where". She wanted to get home to her dog, Dexter, and would drape that precious medal around his neck for a bit.
What made her day so memorable, though, were not just the details of her story to this point but what she produced in the ring against a formidable opponent.
Boxing calmly at distance, she took the first round 4-2, her shots landing cleanly and, more importantly, visibly. The judges have not always been alert in this tournament.
The bout went dramatically in her favour halfway through round two when she landed a peach of a left to the chin of the Chinese southpaw, followed by a right to the temple as she tottered backwards, and Ren was looking at the action from a horizontal position. Adams deserved more than a 5-2 margin, though.
In the third Adams went looking for her now slightly reticent opponent.
Ren's attacks were reduced to wild swings as she sought to make up the deficit and she was an even easier target. Adams danced away from the uglier exchanges and found openings on the counter to lead 14-5 going into the fourth round. A belting left down the pipe unsettled Ren and Adams walked back to the corner in jubilant mood.
She knew not to discount Ren, against whom she has won and lost before, but, husbanding a nine-point lead, she had little more to do than stay out of trouble.
Even so, she could not resist a flourish at the end and, like all good boxers – like the great Sugar Ray – she finished with a left hook.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/au ... oxing-gold
