Hannah Beharry was just 17 years old when she walked into the All Stars Boxing Club in West London and declared that she wanted to box. “As I walked through those gym doors on the first day I already had it in my mind that I wanted to represent Great Britian in the Olympics”.

It was due to the foresight of a local youth worker that Hannah walked through the gym doors at all. A fairly troublesome teenager, she was always in scuffles in the street and was what some would term a bit of a ‘smart mouth’. Where many girls would be intimidated in an all male environment, Hannah entered the gym with no reticence. At last it seemed being the only girl in a household with five brothers had given her some advantage.

The head coach, Mr Akay, was not convinced by her statement initially and he asked her to join the recreational group to get her fitness level up and said he would assess her aptitude for learning and commitment to the training regime. It was not easy to convince Mr Akay that she was serious about boxing and the class was already full. “I was training my butt off for nearly a year before I was allowed to join the carded boxers’ session” she remembers. Finally, having turned 18years, she was transferred into the amateur sessions and began sparring to get ready for competition.

Hannah’s trained hard and she was always very aggressive in sparring. It was obvious she was pretty fearless but she needed calming down; it was also plain to see that she was very determined and pushed herself to the limit physically. For someone who was quite unruly in her early years and held bags of energy, Hannah admits that boxing helped her turn her life around.

“Boxing gave me discipline and focus, I don’t go getting myself into trouble now, all I care about is training, improving my skills and when my next competition is going to be”.

Hannah’s first bout was ironically against a girl from Haringey Police Boxing Club, the club Hannah now boxes for. It was a dinner show and she stopped her opponent in the 3 rd round. In her second bout Hannah won the class C female ABAS title at 50kg.

With just two bouts under her belt Hannah was selected to box for England in the European championships taking place in Warsaw. It was to prove a step too far as she lost in the second round to a strong experienced girl from Russia. “That was one of my hardest bouts and I realised just how much I had to learn”. She had two further bouts for All Stars but she became frustrated as she was only getting one or two bouts a season and her record now stood at 5 bouts won 2 which didn’t reflect her ability.

It’s always hard transferring clubs, leaving the old familiar trainers and team mates but as her old match maker was now based at Haringey it was a little easier for her to make the move. The move was a wise one as Hannah has had five bouts in her first season and turned her record round. She won a Gold medal in a Swedish box cup, a Gold medal in the newly established Haringey box cup and a bronze medal in the recent European Union Championships.

With only a small pool of 48kg boxers here in the UK, getting Hannah the bouts and experience she needs is not easy, the club are well aware that they will have to travel or pay for opponents to travel here but because of her dedication to the sport and obvious skill the club will do the best they can. It is recognised that with more experience Hannah can only improve and hopefully she’ll not only achieve her true potential but also fulfil her dream of entering the Olympics.

Article by Terri Kelly
Terri has been involved in the sport for over 20 years and is currently a matchmaker and coach at Haringey PCC. Terri has also been heavily involved in the promotion and development of Female Amateur Boxing for many years, working hard as the southern area coordinator for female boxing in England. She is also a member of the European commission for women's boxing.