Debbie Rogers v Nicola Adams, National Stadium 2001
The first female Olympic champion has quit boxing eighteen years after representing England at Dublin’s National Stadium in one of three officially sanctioned IABA women’s bouts featuring two athletes who would win three Olympic titles.
Nicola Adams told the Yorkshire Post that she was retiring from boxing because of injury concerns.
The Leeds flyweight claimed double gold for Team GB at London 2012 and Rio 2016.
The flyweight final was the first female gold medal match at London 2012 where women’s boxing made its Olympic debut at three limits.
Adams, Katie Taylor and Claressa Shields of the USA won the flyweight, lightweight and middleweight titles at the 30th Olympiad.
Adams (2), Shields (2), Taylor (1) and France’s Estelle Mossely (1) are the only, so far, female Olympic titlists. The quartet switched codes after Rio 2016.
Adams met Ireland’s Debbie Rogers at the National Stadium on Halloween night in 2001 on a card featuring Katie Taylor versus Allana Murphy and Sallie McCardle versus England’s Julia Field.
Adams, Taylor and McCardle had their hands raised in victory at the home of Irish boxing.
The Daily Telegraph described the Halloween fight night, which also featured 12 male bouts, as historic.
A few weeks after the first officially sanctioned IABA female bouts at the Stadium, the inaugural World Women’s Elite Championships was hosted in Scranton, USA.
The inaugural European Women’s Championships was hosted in France in the summer of 2001.