Emma-Sue Greentree: “When I got diabetes I was told don’t let it stop me from doing anything I want to achieve.”

Emma-Sue Greentree: “When I got diabetes I was told don’t let it stop me from doing anything I want to achieve.”

Australia seemingly has a seemingly never-ending supply of female talent coming through its amateur system. The likes of Caitlin Parker, Kaye Scott, Antonia Kaye, Kristy Harris, and others are ensuring Australia is well-represented on the international stage. Emma-Sue Greentree is another fighter that needs to be added to that list. Unknown to many before the start of 2023, but a move up in weight has changed everything for the 24-year-old light-heavyweight over the past few months. In her first-ever World Amateur Championships, Greentree came home with a medal, an achievement made even more special by her ongoing battle with Type 1 diabetes.

Greentree had just completed a training session in preparation for her latest tournament on foreign soil. More accustomed to the heat of her homeland, but another cold Irish morning greeted the Australian again as she travelled to her next rendevous point. Fighting a weakening signal as she moved through some remote part of the beautiful country she is calling home for the next few weeks, but after a couple of near misses we finally connected over Zoom.

Like many Greentree came into boxing through the backdoor of another sport, primarily track and field. The budding athlete had reached a stalemate on that journey and the urge to do something else prompted the switch to boxing she told me:

“I used to do track and field but I felt I wasn’t getting any better at it, so I wanted to try something else. At the time my dad was doing excavation work for a boxing coach and he said to me that I should give boxing a go and I have never looked back I guess.”

While the track and field journey had reached a natural conclusion, a life in rugby could have been her route if boxing hadn’t come her way:

“I did a bit of rugby at school, and if I hadn’t got into boxing I would probably have got more into rugby.”

With nine siblings, the competition was high in the New South Wales family home. One of her sisters Belinda Wright won a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics representing Australia in softball and is undoubtedly an inspiration to Greentree with a touch of friendly competition thrown in for good measure:

“My sister does inspire me, she went to the Bejing Olympics in 2008 and they brought home a bronze medal. And there is probably a little bit of sibling rivalry there as well, to go one-up on her.”

Boxing is a hard sport at the best of times, full health is almost a requirement for any kind of success. But Greentree disproves this theory. Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes (T1D) from an early age, the success in her sport is an even more remarkable achievement. There is only positivity from the fighter about her condition, an acceptance of her diabetes and the complications it brings to her sporting career:

“It’s pretty much part of my life now. I got it around two weeks after my sister got back from the Olympics. So I have had it since 2008 so it’s been a long time. No day is ever the same, Greentree told me. “The adrenaline of boxing can send my blood sugar levels really high and if I don’t make a correction then I might end up dropping really low. So it is a bit of a balancing act. That’s my life now, from the outside it might look hard, but from the inside, I can’t do anything different. It’s a matter of life and death and I’ve got to make sure I get it right.”

The demands of training, and the fuelling of the body are further complicated by the need to ensure her blood sugar levels are where they need to be. A balancing act with potentially serious consequences:

“What I have to do before I eat is look at what’s in my food. If say I had toast for my breakfast I have to look at how many carbohydrates are in the toast. And from there I will have to have an insulin injection, and I have to adjust that depending on what my blood sugar levels are. So if I have to keep myself at 8, and I have two pieces of toast I will have 5 units of insulin to keep myself level at 8. But the next day I could be at 16 and I will then have to get my sugar levels back down. But it is always a bit of a rollercoaster like that.”

Greentree is passionate about being a role model and raising awareness about diabetes and in the process letting people know it doesn’t have to stop them from following their dreams:

“At the end of last year, I went to a diabetes camp as a mentor to some young diabetics. Some of them said they didn’t think that they could do sport anymore and continue to do what they love and it just blew my mind that is what they have been told. When I got diabetes I was told don’t let it stop me from doing anything I want to achieve. Just hearing those young people say things like that kind of broke my heart, they should be allowed to do whatever they want to do. It just takes a little bit of extra care for themselves.”

If anyone wants inspiration that a sporting life doesn’t have to stop if they have diabetes, Greentree would be a good place to start. Her boxing career reached new heights in 2023, a move up in weight changed everything for a fighter with Olympic ambitions, Greentree relayed to me:

“Up until this year, I had never done any international competitions. I was fighting in the 75kg division and I was always falling just short. We have Caitlin Parker in that division and I was just falling short every single time at National level. So getting that international experience this year was important to me with the Olympics coming up next year which is why I moved up to 81kg. I’ve always learned every time I have fought Caitlin. I’ve always learned something new and something to improve on.”

In many ways, it has been a breakthrough year for Greentree. That ever-so-crucial first taste of international competition was swiftly followed by winning a bronze medal in her first-ever World Championships in India earlier this year. The seeds of her success were firmly planted when she was a mere avid viewer last year she told me:

“I was watching the World Championships in Turkey last year and I was thinking I belong there. And then having got the two gold medals I got in Bulgaria and Hungary and I said Ok I can do this and then getting the bronze medal, it was just awesome.”

While the focus is on the unpaid ranks, there are ambitions to turn professional, but with her sights fixed on possibly two more Olympic cycles, the prospects of seeing Greentree fighting professionally in the near future are remote at best: “Eventually I would want to turn professional. But I have so much to do before I do turn professional. Hopefully, boxing gets put back in the Olympics in 2028, so that will be another goal. So I will be in the amateurs for a while yet.”

Greentree has immediate Olympic hopes in 2024 but without an 81kg category in Paris she has no option but to move back down and potentially face Caitlin Parker again for that precious Olympic selection. That friendly sibling rivalry with her sister will also drive her on. To emulate that bronze medal her sister got in 2008. But the likelihood is Greentree will want to better it. You sense the story of Emma-Sue Greentree is just getting started.