Golden girl Adams inspires Mitchell to win world title

Monday, August 13, 2012
3:11 PM

Dagenham Destroyer names Nicola Adams as his stand-out star in the London 2012 Olympics

WBO World lightweight title challenger Kevin Mitchell has been inspired by watching the first ever female Olympic boxing champion Nicola Adams.

The Dagenham Destroyer is hard in training for his second world title attempt on Saturday September 22 at Glasgow’s SECC against world champion Ricky Burns and says watching flyweight Adams make history as the first women ever to win Olympic gold has fired him up for victory.

Mitchell, 27, congratulated the 10-strong team of Team GB boxers made up of seven men and three women who won three golds, a silver and a bronze, but Adams was his standout boxer of London 2012.

“Watching all the lads in action was great and I congratulate Anthony Joshua and Luke Campbell for winning gold, Fred Evans on winning silver and Anthony Ogogo for capturing bronze, but who really made a big impression on me was gold medalist Nicola Adams, I thought she was fantastic,” said Mitchell.

“Like Jessica Ennis, I reckon she has been the face of these Olympics. Her performance will have inspired a new generation of young women to try out boxing and she’s also brought a new audience to the sport and really lifted its profile, even the Duchess of Cambridge went to watch Nicola in action,

“A lot of people don’t like women’s boxing but she has shown that the women boxers have got just as much skill as the men and the sport will go from strength to strength now.

“She comes across as a real nice girl as well, down to earth and bubbly and she’s had to overcome a lot over the last few years so I was really happy to see her beat the world champion Ren Cancan in the final to win gold,”

Mitchell added, “Just watching her in action has given me the inspiration to beat Burns and I aim to keep the feelgood factor of British sport going by bringing the world title to London next month.”