NICOLA smitten with boxer Marlen

Nicola Adams is a picture of happiness as she trains for her professional debut in a gym overlooking America’s most famous bay, while her partner in life pounds away on a nearby running machine.

Marlen Esparza, 27, has her own history-making pedigree as a medallist at London 2012, where women were first admitted to Olympic boxing.

Even though they were on the podium together — Esparza taking the bronze in the same flyweight division — that was not where their relationship began.

Ask the first woman ever to win an Olympic gold medal if it was love at first fight for her, and Adams laughs, adding: “Oh, no. We will never box each other. We’d known each other for five or six years but never really spoke.

“We were each other’s nemesis even though we never fought. About a year ago we were both at a training camp in Colorado and got talking. That was it.”

Miss Adams, OBE, 34, is radiant about her relationship.

“It’s the perfect partnership,” she says.