| Women's boxing in Australia | |
|---|---|
 Booka and Chris Durack sparring with a speed bag. The sisters are wearing long skirts and shirts with rolled up sleeves and no boxing gloves. The speed bag is attached to a timber beam in an open-sided building. | |
| Country | Australia |
| National team(s) | Australia |
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that date, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created. [1] Boxing classes were being offered to women in Australia by 1892, at locations such as the Brisbane Gymnasium on Turbot Street, close to the city's railway station. [2] While classes may have been offered for women, serious training was not permitted for women by the 1900s and women were banned from pursuing the sport in a competitive way. Women were also barred from attending boxing matches. [3] New South Wales banned women's boxing from 1986 to 2009. [4] Women's boxing was resumed in NSW with an exhibition fight between Kaye Scott and Ramona Stephenson in October 2009. [5] Women's boxing was legalized in Queensland in 2000. [6]
Female boxers in Australia have historically faced problems with acceptance of their involvement in the sport. In many places, they have been unable to find places to train and faced difficulties with the law prohibiting them from competing. [6] In 2005, a PhD student in Australia was doing research on the history of women's boxing in the country. [6]
In 2002, Desi Kontos of South Australia became the first Australian woman to represent the country at the boxing world championships. [7]
In 2008, several national championships happened in Australia for women. These events were held in July in Melbourne and included the Australian Under 17 Women's Championships, Australian Senior Women's Championships and the Australian Women's Championships Medal Winners. [8] In 2008, the women's national championships were unable to be held alongside the men's because women's boxing was illegal in New South Wales. [7]
The Australian 2010 Women's World Championships 75 kg Selection Trial were held from 3–4 July in Canberra. [8]
The Australian World Elite and Junior Teams Selection Trials were held from 27 to 29 March in 2009 in Port Adelaide. [8]
Naomi Fischer-Rasmussen was the first female boxer to represent Australia at the Olympics when she competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics. [9] [10]
Caitlin Parker became the first Australian female boxer to win an Olympic medal when she won bronze at the 2024 Summer Olympics. [11] [12]
Although women have participated in boxing for almost as long as the sport has existed, female fights have been effectively outlawed for most of boxing's history until recently, with athletic commissioners refusing to sanction or issue licenses to women boxers, and most nations officially banning the sport. Reports of women entering the ring go back to the 18th century.
Lance Revill is the former president of the New Zealand Professional Boxing Association (NZPBA), a New Zealand boxing promoter, referee, and a former New Zealand professional boxer. Revill compiled a professional record of 21 wins and 13 losses, with 13 knockouts, in light heavyweight bouts fought in New Zealand and Australia between 1974 and 1990.
Women's sport in Australia started in the colonial era. Sport made its way into the school curriculum for girls by the 1890s. World War II had little impact on women's sport in the country. After the war, women's sport diversified as a result of new immigrants to the country. In the 1990s, the percentage of media coverage for women's sport on radio, television and in newspapers was not at parity with male sport. Basketball is nominally professional in Australia but players do not earn enough from the sport to compete full-time. Some Australians have gone overseas to play professional sport. Many television spectators for Australian sport are women. In person, netball has large percentage of female spectators. The Australian Federal and State governments have encouraged women to participate in all areas of sport.
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that date, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created. Athletic events were being held in schools in Australia by the early part of the twentieth century. The Glennie School in Toowoomba was one school to host races for girls during their annual girls' sport day. During the 1920s, girls were able to run while wearing bloomers, instead of skirts. The first meeting for women's athletics took place in 1926 and was organised by the NSWAAA. The purpose of the meeting was to determine if it would be possible to send women to compete in the 1928 Summer Olympics based on merit. Only one female athlete was determined to be good enough to send. That was E.F. Robinson. The first women's national athletics body designed to govern the sport in Australia was founded in 1932 and was called the Australian Women's Amateur Athletic Union. It was designed to oversee state organisations in Victoria (1929), Queensland (1921), New South Wales (1932) and South Australia. (1932) The first Australian woman to travel overseas to compete was E.F. Robinson, who went to the 1928 Summer Olympics where she ran in the 100-metres. She came in third and was the only Australian female on the 1928 Australian Olympic team.
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that date, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created. For swimming, the rapid expansion of facilities took place during the 1880s and the 1890s. Compared to the past when the whole of the swimming community was made up of males, currently 55 percent of the Australian swimming membership is made up of women. Not only do females dominate swimming in the pool but there are more than 5,500 female coaches in the swimming world in Australian and over 2,000 female technical officials.
While not being urged to avoid competition, women had few opportunities to compete in sport in Australia until the 1880s. After that date, new sporting facilities were being built around the country and many new sport clubs were created. One of the reason women were encouraged to play croquet, tennis and golf during the late 1800s was because it was seen as beneficial to their health. These sports were also seen as passive, non-aggressive and non-threatening to the period's concepts of masculinity and femininity.
Kym Tollenaere is an Australian softball catcher who lives in Queensland, whom she represents in national competitions. She has represented Australia as a member of the Australia women's national softball team. She made the training squad but ultimately did not represent Australia at the 2004 Summer Olympics. As a member of the national team, she earned a gold medal at the 2005 Canada Cup, a silver at the 2005 Pacific Rim tournament and a bronze medal at the 2005 World Cup. She is trying to secure a sport on the squad that will compete at the 2012 ISF XIII Women's World Championships. She has played softball professionally in Japan.
Johan ‘Ice Man’ Linde is an Australian boxer of Estonian descent. He represented Australia at the 2012 London Olympic Games in the super heavyweight division. He is the current Australian National Boxing Federation South Australian Heavyweight champion.
Jesse Ross is an Australian amateur boxer selected for the 2012 Summer Olympics in the middleweight division.
Naomi Fischer-Rasmussen is an Australian boxer from Western Australia. She has held Australian national titles in two weight divisions, and was the only Australian woman selected to represent the country at the 2012 Summer Olympics in boxing. She ranked number one in the world in her weight class in 2011, and finished ninth at the 2012 World Championships.
Mixed martial arts (MMA) has developed in Australia from a wide cross-section of sporting and martial arts disciplines to become the most popular combat sport in the country.
Lauren Louise Price is a Welsh professional boxer, former amateur boxer and former kickboxer and footballer. She has held the WBA, IBO, and Ring female welterweight World titles since 11 May 2024. She was the first-ever female British professional boxing champion having won the welterweight title on 6 May 2023 and holding it until vacating the belt when she became World champion. While representing Wales in the amateur sport she won a bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, becoming the first Welsh woman to win a Commonwealth Games boxing medal. Four years later she surpassed this achievement by winning gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, followed by a gold at the 2019 World Championships. While representing Great Britain, she won gold medals at the 2019 European Games and 2020 Summer Olympics.
James Neil Nicolson was an Australian boxer. He won a bronze medal at the 1989 World Amateur Boxing Championships in Moscow and a bronze medal at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, before competing at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Nicolson turned professional later in 1992, and held a record of 7–1 prior to his death.
Skye Brittany Nicolson is an Australian professional boxer. She is the reigning WBC featherweight world champion. As an amateur, she competed in the featherweight event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, winning the gold medal. Nicolson competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics. In her first bout in the women's Feather (54–57 kg) preliminaries she beat Im Ae-ji from Republic of Korea on points. She was beaten in the quarterfinals by Kariss Artingstall from Great Britain.
Lovlina Borgohain is an Indian boxer. She won a bronze medal at the 2020 Olympic Games in the women's welterweight event, becoming only the third Indian boxer to win a medal at the Olympics. She won gold medal at 2023 IBA Women's World Boxing Championships and bronze medals at the 2018 AIBA Women's World Boxing Championships and the 2019 AIBA Women's World Boxing Championships. Borgohain is the first female athlete and the second boxer from Assam to represent the state in the Olympics. In 2020, she became the sixth person from Assam to receive Arjuna Award.
Caitlin Parker is an Australian amateur boxer, who became the first female boxer from Australia to win an Olympic medal when she took bronze at the 2024 Paris Games. Parker has also won silver and bronze medals at two Commonwealth Games and bronze at the 2014 Youth Olympics.
Millicent 'Milli' Agboegbulem is a Nigerian amateur boxer based in Australia. An Australian Super Welterweight champion, she also won a bronze medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Charlie Senior is an English-born Australian boxer. As an amateur, he has represented Australia at the Pacific Games, Commonwealth Games, where he won the gold medal, and the 2024 Summer Olympics, where he won the bronze medal.
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