Women's boxing first appeared in the Olympic Games as a demonstration sport in 1904 but was banned in most nations for most of the 20th century including the UK. A major breakthrough for women boxing in the UK was the decision of the Amateur Boxing Association of England to lift the 116 year ban in 1996. New rules for women’s boxing was formed by AIBA at the end of 20th century with approval for the first European Cup for Women in 1999 and the first World Championship 2001 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Since then the sport’s popularity has increased hugely, leading to the introduction of the Women’s World and European Championships biannually with 130 nations registering competitive female boxers.

British female boxers have already had great success, with England’s national team having four women in the 2008 top 10 world rankings and winning a silver medal at the World Championships. Scotland also won its first bronze medal at the EU Championships in 2008 and Wales have won a Bronze medal at both the European Youth and Junior Championships.

Even though it has grown in popularity women’s boxing was still the only amateur sport in the Olympic Games in which women were not represented until the fantastic news came on 14th August 2009 when it was announced that the International Olympic Committee’s Executive Board (EB) had approved the inclusion of women’s boxing for the Games in London in the 2012 Olympics. There will be three weight classes added to the Olympic programme with one of the 11 men’s classes dropped to make room. Women will fight at flyweight (48-51kg), lightweight (56-60kg) and middleweight (69-75kg).

It is now the challenge for British Amateur Boxing Association to seek out the best of the British talent to train and prepare them for the 2012 Olympic Games and to find funding to support these girls in this process. The first step was to host the first ever GB women’s assessment camp on 6-8th November in Sheffield, where 23 nominated boxers from all three home nations were assessed on their boxing skills and fitness. There will be a number of assessment camps before the first ever GB women’s team will be selected.

These are exciting times for amateur boxing and with the inclusion of women at the Olympics hopefully medal success will be even greater than Beijing.