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| Commonwealth Games 2014: Natasha Jonas ready for boxing openers | |
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| The trailblazing Liverpool lightweight Natasha Jonas believes future generations of female boxers will owe a debt of gratitude to those who have helped shatter her sport’s long-standing gender boundaries. | The trailblazing Liverpool lightweight Natasha Jonas believes future generations of female boxers will owe a debt of gratitude to those who have helped shatter her sport’s long-standing gender boundaries. |
| Women’s boxing will make its Commonwealth Games debut in Glasgow on Monday, with the first round of the flyweight competition including bouts for the Olympic gold medallist Nicola Adams and Northern Ireland’s Michaela Walsh. | |
| Two years ago Jonas became the first female British boxer to compete at an Olympics in a tumultuous contest against Ireland’s Katie Taylor from which she emerged narrowly beaten but with her reputation intact. | Two years ago Jonas became the first female British boxer to compete at an Olympics in a tumultuous contest against Ireland’s Katie Taylor from which she emerged narrowly beaten but with her reputation intact. |
| The 30-year-old from Toxteth – who will start her campaign against Australia’s Shelley Watts on Tuesday – hardly dreamed of taking part in such high-profile occasions when she fought for the right to take up the sport in her youth. | The 30-year-old from Toxteth – who will start her campaign against Australia’s Shelley Watts on Tuesday – hardly dreamed of taking part in such high-profile occasions when she fought for the right to take up the sport in her youth. |
| Jonas said: “I always thought the biggest accolade would be to box for England and when I achieved that I thought it was as far as I was going to go. But obviously in 2009, when they decided women’s boxing would be included in the Olympics, it was a great moment, and now it is happening again with the Commonwealth Games. | Jonas said: “I always thought the biggest accolade would be to box for England and when I achieved that I thought it was as far as I was going to go. But obviously in 2009, when they decided women’s boxing would be included in the Olympics, it was a great moment, and now it is happening again with the Commonwealth Games. |
| “It is nice to know we are going down in the history books. A lot of girls will come after us and win medals, but we will always be the first. All this wasn’t there when we started. But we fought for the right and we paved the way for all the other girls who are going to come up after us.” | “It is nice to know we are going down in the history books. A lot of girls will come after us and win medals, but we will always be the first. All this wasn’t there when we started. But we fought for the right and we paved the way for all the other girls who are going to come up after us.” |
| Women’s boxing proved a success at London 2012, with a series of competitive contests which culminated in Adams’ superb demolition of the Chinese world champion Ren Cancan to claim gold. The Commonwealth programme is not expected to offer quite so much strength in depth and the English trio of Adams, Jonas and the reigning world middleweight champion Savannah Marshall will start as strong favourites for gold. | |
| But Adams will not necessarily have it all her own way with Walsh and the young Indian Pinki Jangra – the conqueror of five-times world champion Mary Kom in the Indian qualifiers – providing a good standard of opposition. | But Adams will not necessarily have it all her own way with Walsh and the young Indian Pinki Jangra – the conqueror of five-times world champion Mary Kom in the Indian qualifiers – providing a good standard of opposition. |