Rio 2016: Nicola Adams looks to make history as she prepares for 2012 title defence at Olympic Games

It is nearly time for Adams to get back in the Olympic ring and become the first British boxer since Harry Malllin in the Twenties to retain an Olympic boxing title

Nicola Adams is all set for her 2012 title defence (Getty)

Nicola Adams fights again.

Nearly fifteen years ago there was a random audition for a mixed gang of Britain's female boxers to see if any were good enough to send to the World amateur championships. Some, it has to be said, were dreadful, others showed a bit of promise.

Nicola Adams was one of the women that was under scrutiny on that day by the men in charge of selection, and in the end it was decided that not one British woman would be sent. The decision was simple, our women were too far behind; it is too easy to forget that in the Eighties and Nineties the British men were also kept back from the World championships to avoid massacres.

It is nearly time for Adams to get back in the Olympic ring and become the first British boxer since Harry Malllin in the Twenties to retain an Olympic boxing title; her campaign starts against Ukraine's Tetyana Kob on Tuesday, but in many ways the rejection all those years ago and a decade or more of struggling for funding, recognition and respect is the true starting point.

"It was hard at the start to get the opportunities," said Adams, who since winning gold in London has floated around the edges of the celebrity circuit, rubbing shoulders with the glamorous in various highly-paid photo-shoots. "It just seemed that boxers everywhere else in the world were in front of us, but we soon started winning medals at major events."

In 2007 Adams travelled out to Veilje in Denmark, a remote outpost where Lego is based, to win the first major medal by a British woman at an amatuer boxing championship when she took a silver at bantamweight. There was a lot speculation that summer about women's boxing being included in the Beijing Olympic programme, but the belated decision to embrace women came in the summer of 2009 and it is convenient to overlook the heated controversy when it was revealed that just three of 13 weights would be allocated an Olympic slot. Adams had to make a decision to lose three kilos or gain six kilos; she settled on flyweight, dropped the flesh and in 2010 won a silver medal at the World championships in Bridgetown, Barbados. The race was on for glory in London from that glittering moment.

"It was all about sacrifices from that point," added Adams. "We have to give up so much, for so long to get anywhere near a medal. I made that decision a long time ago, long before London. I wanted a gold medal, I wanted to make history."

Adams added the European gold at her new weight in 2011 but for the second time lost in the final of the World championships in China to China's Cancan Ren just a few months before the London Olympics. Ren started in London as the number one seed, Adams as the number two and that meant the rivals could only fight in the final. There was very little pressure on Adams because Savannah Marshall at middleweight went to London as the World champion and the favourite for gold; Marshall, who is in Wednesday's quarter-final, lost without a whimper in London, Natasha Jonas, the British lightweight, lost to Katie Taylor and suddenly all the attention was on Adams.


 Nicola Adams in training ahead of the Olympics (Getty )
 (Getty)

"There are parts of the London Olympics that are a bit of a blur," continued Adams. "I can remember thinking that nobody would beat me, not Ren, nobody. I was ready, I just wanted to fight." Adams won twice, Ren won twice and they met in the final for the first ever female gold medal at the boxing. Adams dropped her bitter rival heavily, won every second and soared to victory on the back of the hollers from 10,000 tearful spectators. A ten-year journey was over for the tiny pioneer, the path to Rio had started.

The gold changed her life, she quickly crossed the increasingly invisible sexual barrier and announced that she was bisexual, she posed with everything and often still looked in a post-medal stupor. "It's been constant, it has never stopped, not since the moment I won the gold," admitted Adams. "I have just got on with it and nobody cares about me being bisexual. It's boxing, it only matters if you can fight." She shares double icon status, a gay with a gold and that is an exclusive club.

In this ring, in this tired and dirty corner of Rio there is the chance that Adams will have to beat Ren again, this time in the semi-final, which is her next fight if she beats Kob in the morning. This will be the final Olympics for Adams at 33 now and perhaps it will also be her last three fights. However, boxers seldom stick to retirement declarations and in Rio there are quite a few 36 and 37 year-old sluggers.

Mallin, by the way, back in 1924 beat another British boxer in the final - Adams will have it much, much harder if she is to retain one of sport's most elusive titles and win a second gold medal. She is right, in boxing all that matters is that you can fight and she can.