Right hook like a lady

There has been a lot of consternation recently because women’s boxing has been included in the next Olympic games in London. I can’t see what the problem is. I’m more concerned about the addition of golf – that’s not a sport. It’s a game at best, and not even a very good one at that. It doesn’t display strength, agility, or fitness – although I concede there is technique involved. The fact that some 59-year-old bloke can lead the British Open proves my point – it’s darts for the rich and corporate.

So; back to women’s boxing. One of the complaints I’ve heard is that it is dangerous. How so? How is it more dangerous for women than for men? In amateur boxing there is no hitting of the chest area and they wear headgear. I would have thought all the other martial sports included (judo, taekwondo, wrestling) were equally ‘dangerous’. They all have female categories – boxing has been, until now, the only sport reserved for men only.

I think people may be confusing it with professional boxing – often slugfests organised by unscrupulous sleaze-merchants. Compared with that, amateur boxing is technical and tactical, and as fencing is to pub brawls. It has dignity and grace and should be rescued from the corrupt and dubious underground pit dominated by men who like to watch women hurt each other.

I used to train at a boxing gym. I was the fittest and fastest I have ever been in my life. The speed, agility, discipline, and quick-decision-making the sport teaches is second to none. And it wasn’t aggressive. We weren’t there to punch each other’s lights out but to get on with the sport. Of course it’s combative and competitive, but it wasn’t brutal or violent.

One day walking home from the gym after such a gruelling workout I could hardly lift my arms, I was attacked and mugged in an underpass. The next day my instructor (the flyweight champion of the northwest region) taught me how best to defend myself. His words of advice? Run away. He showed me a few moves that could be used to disable an opponent, but stressed these were never to be used in the ring, only in cases of extreme necessity.

The other accusation is that it is un-ladylike. The people (okay, let’s be honest, men) who complain thus are probably the same ones who think it is acceptable to watch jelly wrestling or beach volleyball. Crotch-slicing Lycra isn’t what I would consider ladylike personally, but they seem happy to wear it and be ogled doing so. It’s their choice and I don’t see outraged comments about it – funny that.