If I inspire people that’s good... it’s something I always try to do
Two-time Olympic boxing champion Nicola Adams talks to KATE WHITING about her steely fight for success
NICOLA ADAMS is one of the sweetest, giggliest, most upbeat people you could ever wish to meet, all sparkling eyes and that famously Olympic-sized grin.
She hasn’t got a bad word to say about anyone, least of all her Twitter trolls: “Even if they’re saying bad stuff, they’ve actually still taken time out of their day to write you that, so I guess in a way they’re still fans,” she says, giggling.
But beneath that bubbly exterior is a steely determination that has seen her become, in her own words, “the most accomplished amateur boxer in Britain that we’ve had, male or female”.
The reigning Olympic, World, Commonwealth Games and European Games flyweight boxing champion, Nicola, who has now turned pro, became the first female boxing Olympic champion in 2012.
Achieving Olympic gold was something she knew would happen from her teens, and she retained her title in Rio last year. Her autobiography, Believe, distils just how ‘the baby-faced assassin’ was shaped, learning to fight both inside and outside the ring.
It’s clear from the book that she’s her mum Dee’s biggest fan and today says her incredible self-belief comes from her.
“She worked so hard, was a single parent, raising two kids and working two jobs to help with funding me and looking after my brother. She always used to say, ‘If you work hard, you can achieve anything’ and I’ve always believed it. It shows today, two Olympic gold medals later.”
Born in Leeds in 1982, Nicola grew up on a council estate with younger brother Kurtis. Despite being plagued with allergies, eczema and asthma, it didn’t stop her from doing what she wanted.
“I remember being told that, having asthma, I shouldn’t really be running around and playing with the other kids, but at five years old, you can’t tell a kid to sit down and not play, so I was like, ‘I’m not going to do that, I’m going to have fun and try new things’.
“So I guess I’ve always had that determined attitude,” says the 34-year-old, in her familiar Yorkshire accent.
When she was 11, her parents separated. In the book, she says it was a relief, as “mum had put up with a lot”. One of her earliest memories was stepping in front of her mum with a plastic sword, aged just three or four, trying to protect her from her father.
The following year, it was Dee who inadvertently introduced her to boxing, when Nicola and her brother were dragged to the boxing gym, where her mum was having an aerobics class, after a babysitter cancelled at the last minute.
Nicola had watched all Muhammad Ali’s fights on TV with her dad and was fascinated, so when the coach at the gym asked if she wanted a go, she fell for the sport hook, line and sinker.
Her first match was in a working men’s club in Leeds, aged 13, the room “thick with smoke, which really hurt the back of my throat”. She still won, and decided then she was going to be an Olympic champion, even though women’s boxing wasn’t yet an Olympic sport.
As things were coming together, her mum almost died from meningitis and spent a month in hospital. The experience – on top of everything else they’d been through – made Nicola stronger.
“It was really scary at the time, thinking I was going to lose my mum, and she was the only person that I really looked up to and respected,” she says now. “It was tough, especially when the doctor said a couple more hours and she wouldn’t have been here today, then having to look after my brother as well as myself, get him ready for school and make the dinners, and visit my mum at the hospital. It was really hard.”
Then there was the inequality she faced as a woman boxer: No physios, barely any time to train in camps and even having to share kit.
“For the World Championships in China, we turned up the day before, with no time to adjust, or acclimatise to the temperature and then had to box in a kit that your team-mate’s just worn, so it was all sweaty... it was totally different, we wouldn’t get training camps on a regular basis, like the male boxers.
“We’d get one training camp two weeks before a major tournament and then be expected to win medals. You can’t expect that with that kind of notice.” As part of Team GB in the 2012 Olympics, everything was on a par, but in the women’s professional game, she thinks there’s “still a way to go” before it’s a level playing field.
Over the years, she’s also battled injuries, once ending up in a body cast with damaged vertebrae after she slipped and fell down the stairs of her London flat.
“There were times, especially with my back, when I thought I’d never be able to get back to where I was before,” she admits. “I’d been in bed for three months, not being able to move. I was ranked number two in the world. To go from that to nothing was really hard to deal with.”
Then there was a shoulder injury, where her tricep was detached, but she fought through the pain to win gold at the Commonwealth Games. Does she look back and think it was foolish?
“Naah! I’m still pleased I did it,” she says cheerfully.
In the book, Nicola also describes how she came out to her mum as bisexual at 15, and her mum’s reaction was typically “amazing”.
“She very casually said, ‘Oh, that’s OK, I kind of knew anyway’.”
She recently proposed to Mexican-American pro boxer Marlen Esparza, and the pair train together in San Francisco.
In the book, she writes that of the 11,000 athletes competing at Rio, only 44 were openly gay. Although she respects those who choose to keep their private life private, does she feel like a role model, being so honest about her sexuality?
“If I’m inspiring people, it’s a really good thing, because it’s something I always try to do.”
Wedding planning is taking a back seat for now and next on her list is winning a world title as a professional, which she’s hoping to fight for “within the year”.
Then she’ll need to think about whether she defends her Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020. “Now the pros can compete, that’s put a bit of a question mark on my to-do list,” she says, giggling. “I’m still thinking at the moment, but I’ve got a couple of years to decide.”
There’s also her budding acting career – she’s been an extra in Coronation Street and Emmerdale and trained as a stuntwoman before London 2012 – and would like to combine acting and boxing some day. Could she play the first female James Bond?
“That would be cool, I’d have to be the first one wouldn’t I? I’ve been the first on everything else!”