Liverpool boxer Natasha Jonas turns professional
Friday 14 April 2017 13:44, UK
Britain’s first female Olympic boxer Natasha Jonas has announced that she is turning professional.
The Sky Sports Living for Sport Athlete Mentor will return to the ring under the tutelage of champion trainer Joe Gallagher after stepping away from the sport two years ago when she was pregnant.
Jonas was an aspiring footballer who earned a scholarship to play in America before a knee injury curtailed her football dream, leading to her taking up boxing in 2005.
She became European Union 60kg champion in 2009 before making history at the 2012 World Amateur Boxing Championships when she reached the semi-finals to become the first British female boxer in history to qualify for an Olympic Games.
Liverpool lightweight Jonas was the first female boxer to don the GB vest at an Olympics, emphatically beating American Quanitta Underwood to set up a quarter-final bout with Ireland's Katie Taylor.
Taylor, who turned pro last year and has since won her first four professional bouts, won the last-eight contest after a pulsating clash at London's Copper Box Arena before going on to win the gold medal.
Jonas understands why the clamour has already begun to see her fight Taylor as a professional but insists the lure of a rematch with the Irish sensation in the paid ranks was not the motivation behind her ring return.
"The decision to leave boxing was a harder choice. The decision to go back was a lot easier," Jonas told Tuesday's Sportswomen show on Sky Sports News HQ.
"I think that [a rematch with Taylor] is what everyone would like to see and if you were one of the 10,000 that was sitting in the crowd that night I'm not shocked because the noise was unbelievable and the atmosphere was unbelievable.
"It was one of the best nights of boxing I have ever seen but I'm on a personal journey and if that mean us meeting in the end then we'll see."
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