The Olympic gold medal winner opens up on her violent childhood and the inequality and sexism she overcame in boxing
There was so much chaos and violence in Nicola Adams’s life as a young girl that, for her, boxing offered a refuge. The ring felt like a safe place where she could discover bravery and resolve deep within herself even when she felt lost and frightened. “I was beaten by my dad and it wasn’t until my mum, my brother and I left, and I started boxing, that things changed,” Adams says all these years later.
She is a double Olympic champion, having won gold at London 2012 and then again four years later in Rio, but it is only now that Adams can reveal that she told her mother that they should murder her father to end their distress. Her mum had other relationships with violent men in later years and Adams says she slept with a hammer under her bed as a way of fighting back.