Nicola Adams

Nicola Adams was born in Leeds and grew up with her mother and brother after her parents separated, in a home that had been marked by her father's violence. She found boxing by accident at 12 when her mother, unable to get a babysitter, took her along to an aerobics class at a gym that also ran boxing for children. She loved it immediately, and by 13 she had her first bout.

For most of her early career there was almost nowhere to go. Women's boxing was banned in England until 1996 and there were few opponents, no funding and little interest. She worked as an extra on television dramas to make ends meet and once fell down the stairs, cracking a vertebra and spending months out. She won a world championship silver in 2008 but the sport was still not in the Olympics.

When women's boxing was finally added for London 2012, she was 29. She beat the Chinese world champion Ren Cancan in the flyweight final in front of a home crowd and became the first woman in history to win Olympic boxing gold. In Rio in 2016 she won again.

She turned professional in 2017 and won a world title before retiring in 2019 on medical advice to protect her eyesight. In 2020 she danced on Strictly Come Dancing as half of the programme's first same-sex couple.