REMEMBER WHEN

Tuesday, June 10, 2008 GOLD COAST BULLETIN

TWELVE years earlier Skye Nicolson was the baby who mended her parents’ broken hearts but by 2008 they referred to her as their ‘million dollar baby’.

‘‘Well maybe half-million dollar. Let’s not put too high an expectation on her,’’ said her father Allan before roaring with laughter.

Skye was the sister of Olympic boxer Jamie Nicolson.

Jamie, 22, and brother Gavin, 10, were killed in a car accident at Helensvale on the way to boxing training in 1994 – 14 years earlier.

It was that week, Skye stepped into the ring for her second amateur fight – a pretty 12-year-old, a straight-a student who also loved singing and acting.

But she loved boxing more. "At first I wasn’t keen at all for her to box," said her dad, who was no stranger to the fight game, having been secretary of Boxing Queensland for 14 years.

"But it was something she really wanted to do. Her mother and I knew nothing about it. In fact she was training with her brother (Allan Jr) for a couple of weeks before we knew."

The boxing genes ran deep in the Nicolson family and paid no heed to gender.

Allan Jr was a former Queensland amateur titleholder and a trainer of dozens of Australian champions.

Even Katie had wished she could fight when she was young, but that was before female boxing had become accepted.

When Skye pleaded with her brother to train her he agreed, but expected it to be more about fitness than actual boxing.