A warm welcome
Richard Moore welcomes women's boxing into the Olympic family as Britain's Natasha Jonas takes her bow in front of 10,000 people at the Excel Arena.
Last Updated: 05/08/12 9:27pm
At lunchtime on Sunday, Natasha Jonas walked slowly towards a small, illuminated boxing ring in the Excel Arena in front of Lennox Lewis and 10,000 fans, including 150 friends and family members.
It was like a death march, to a soundtrack of frenzied cheering rather than slow handclapping. Yet Jonas was oblivious to all that. She had willed herself not to be distracted by a reception that was always going to be loud, even if it was only her friends and family creating the noise - she was being serious when she said there were 150.
"The atmosphere was phenomenal," said Jonas's coach, Paul Walmsley. "It just hits you. It's like you open a door and it just hits you. But we worked on this. We told her to stay focused."
It was the first day of women's boxing at the London Olympics. It was the first day of women's boxing at any Olympics.
The fight to get boxing on the programme has been long and arduous, but finally it's there, and that seems right. You can oppose boxing - and plenty do - but you cannot oppose women's boxing. Otherwise, we are back in the pre-1984 days, when there was no women's marathon on the grounds that running such a distance was too far for females and was thought to cause them permanent damage.
Boxing and track cycling were the last bastions of institutionalised, IOC-perpetuated sexism, but now, finally, the walls have crumbled and the girls are storming the gaffs, in the velodrome and the ring.
The record books will record that history was made at 1.30pm on Sunday 5 August, 2012, as Elena Savelyeva of Russia and Hye Song Kim of North Korea fought the first women's bout at an Olympic Games. Sadly, it wasn't the most auspicious start, a dour affair that played out in front of a subdued crowd, with the Russian eventually prevailing.
But the second contest offered a complete contrast, because the two boxers, both diminutive and vivacious, entered the arena and instantly illuminated it with their dazzling smiles. It was a South American match-up, Erica Matos of Brazil against Karlha Magliocco of Venezuela, and it perked the crowed up no end.
Both were light on their feet and danced around the ring, spraying punches, and on two occasions ending up on the canvas, together, to ironic cheers. Otherwise the cheers were appreciative, in acknowledgement of their extraordinary energy, if nothing else.
The applause was loud and warm as the bell clanged for the end of the contest, with Magliocco an impressive winner, still smiling and whooping up the crowd. Between the fighters there were hugs, smiles, cheers and general exuberence, of the kind you don't often get in men's boxing.
And then there was a standard of boxing that you don't often get in men's boxing. The arena erupted as India's Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom, also known simply as Mary Kom or 'Magnificent Mary', was introduced.
"Mary Kom, Mary Kom," chanted a sizeable and voluble Indian contingent, waving their country's flag.
She comes from Manipur in the north-east, close to Burma -- she looks more Burmese than Indian - and is an extraordinary fighter: five-foot-two, eight-stone, a mother of twin boys, and a five-time world champion. Oh, and, as appointed by the Manipur state government, an Additional Superintendent of Police. And there is a road named after her.
Ordeal
Her bout with Poland's Karolina Michalczuk was a strength-sapping ordeal; both were dead on their feet at the end, but it was Mary Kom who dominated, punching well and winning convincingly, the scorecard reading 19-14.
Jonas's fight against Quanitta 'Queen' Underwood, of the USA, was fifth on the card, as the competition moved from the flyweight division into the lightweights, and the Liverpool boxer's demeanour as she entered the arena was in stark contrast to the pandemonium breaking out all around her. The reception for Mary Kom was merely the hors d'oeuvre, it now seemed clear. Amid the bedlam, the 28-year old Jonas looked a little nervous.
She comes from Toxteth and won a bronze medal at the recent world championships, but this was a tough first bout against a fighter from Seattle with her own family support ringside, in the form of her sister, Hazzauna. The Underwood girls had a difficult childhood -- their father was jailed for abusing them -- and are inseparable. But Hazzauna could not afford to go to London until readers of the Seattle Times donated to a fund to pay for her travel.
As for Jonas, she grew up in Toxteth, the tough inner city area of Liverpool most famous for its riots in 1981. Wayne Rooney, from nearby Croxteth, tweeted his support in the morning, telling Jonas, "We're all behind you."
Underwood attacked her from the start, forcing Jonas to retreat and defend in a first round that she narrowly lost. "Tasha, Tasha," chanted her supporters between rounds - or perhaps that was just her family. Whoever it was, the encouragement worked, the balance tilted her way; her punches were connecting and she moved into the lead, winning comfortably in the end, 21-13.
"How could you not enjoy that in front of 10,000 home fans?" asked Jonas as she left the ring, sweat pouring off her and breathless. "Just to finally be there is amazing. At the end I wanted to say thank you to everyone, because they were the deciding factor behind it. I'd be thinking, 'I'm tired, I'm tired,' and you've got these people screaming at you and you think, 'I can do it.'"
Was she proud to be one of the first female boxers, and the first from the host nation? "I'm proud of myself first and foremost," said Jonas.
Now she faces the world champion and gold medal favourite, Katie Taylor of Ireland, on Monday. "Two years ago we boxed and I gave her a bit too much respect," said Jonas. "I was quite new on the international scene, but I'm 50 bouts on from that. This time will be different."