Elise Glynn: “As a senior, I am really proving a point now. I am good enough and I will get to Paris.”

Elise Glynn: “As a senior, I am really proving a point now. I am good enough and I will get to Paris.”

The boxing journey of Elise Glynn started when she was just 13. There was the early resentment from within. An outdated prehistoric view from the lingering dinosaurs who thought women still belonged elsewhere and certainly not anywhere near a boxing gym. But Glynn wasn’t going anywhere else. Very quickly, she knew a boxing gym was where she belonged.

I last spoke to Glynn in July of last year. A fighter who already had a plethora of titles to her name. In 2016, she was a National Junior champion, and the following year saw her fight seventeen times without a single defeat to her name. Trust me, in the amateur ranks, that is some statistic. The titles just kept coming and coming. But by the middle of last year, Glynn was on the verge of something more. The dream was to be on the Podium squad at Team GB in Sheffield. Last year, she was in the assessment process, but now Glynn is on that much-cherished Podium squad.

It is a game changer for the talented and single-minded fighter. Things are very different from the last time we connected over Zoom.

“It makes a massive difference,” Glynn told me just a few hours after another hard day’s training at the Institute of Sport in Sheffield. “Obviously, I was coming up last year unpaid from June until October, and I was the reserve for the Commonwealth Games. But I used that as my drive to improve. And the next thing I knew, Rob McCracken pulled me to one side and said I’ve picked you for the Elite Europeans, and when you get back, I am putting you straight onto the Podium squad. I went out to Poland in June and boxed the world number one Irma Testa, and unfortunately, I lost by one point. But I proved myself there, and everyone was saying, “Who is this girl?” I had just taken the world champion and the world number one to a split decision, which was a massive deal, and from then on, I have just been getting better and better.”

A robbery is an overused phrase in boxing. A close fight that could have gone either way is not a robbery. But the view is that Glynn was indeed a victim of daylight robbery when she took on the former two-time Olympian and reigning world champion in Poland earlier this year. The fighter especially is of the view that she was robbed of a rightful victory over the decorated Italian fighter.

“It was a robbery,” Glynn relayed to FightPost. “I have boxed her three times now, but the European Games in June was the closest one. I put my hand in the air, thinking I was going to get my hand raised and everyone was shouting that I had won it. Her coaches were looking down with their heads on the ropes. And then they say her name, and I thought, “Oh my god it’s happened again.” I was shocked I didn’t get the decision. It’s hard, Rob McCracken came up to me and said, “You definitely won that.” We put a complaint in, but that doesn’t change anything. They can’t change the decision. There is a lot of politics in boxing, and they couldn’t just let anyone go to the Olympics. If I had won that fight, I would have boxed Spain next, and if I win that fight, I qualify for Paris. But it just drives me on. I’ve now got my sights set on the 29th February in Italy for the next qualifier and getting picked for that and proving to myself and everyone else that I am the number one 57kg fighter in the country.”

But that near-miss against someone of the quality of Testa highlights that the British fighter is on the right path. It shows the quality of Glynn and the progress that she has made in the last year or so. Without a few minor setbacks, Glynn would have been even further down the road.

“I’ve had a few injuries since November that have set me back a few months but then I went straight into a tournament in Turkey and won gold and then I have just been to Germany for the World Boxing Cup and I won gold there as well. That was really good. I had three tough fights over there. As a senior, I am really proving a point now. I am good enough and I will get to Paris.”

Glynn is only 22 and has the look of a fighter with a golden future ahead of her. The target is the Paris Olympics in 2024. By rights, she should already be there. If the decision against Testa had gone the way most thought that it should have, Glynn would likely have already secured her place in Paris. But the blue-chip prospect has got two more chances to secure that Olympic berth.

“There are three chances to qualify. One has just gone. The next one is in Italy and I have to get to the final. The final one is in Bangkok around May time.” But Glynn doesn’t want to leave that qualification process to go down to the wire. With a fair deal in Italy, Glynn should get what she desires long before a possible last-chance trip to Bangkok comes around.

Everything has changed since our first interview last year. Glynn is now on the verge of qualifying for the Olympic Games, and that quest has been helped greatly by being full-time on Team GB. Back in July of 2022, Glynn was working three jobs and studying for a degree as well as trying to forge her way at the highest level of her sport.

“I’ve stopped with the three jobs now. That was a lot of stress,” a clearly relieved fighter told me. “I am still doing my Business Management degree, and I am now in my third year of doing that. I get some money from Team GB, and I am sponsored by Version2Lights, and that is a massive help to me. They have helped me so much. They saw that I was up and coming in the sport, and they wanted to push me forward. I don’t have to go home and worry about making money and going to work after training. It’s a lot easier now. I am just doing one thing, and I think you can see that in my performances. I am performing a lot better and training a lot harder. I am a lot leaner and stronger than I was last year.”

Glynn is incredibly ambitious. Ambitions that quite rightly match her talents. Paris is the goal, the only focus in the short term. And you get the impression that she won’t be denied. But Paris or not, there are already embryonic thoughts of trying her hand in the professional game at some point in the future.

“They want me to stay on until LA in 2028, but I haven’t signed the contract yet. It would depend on who is offering what in the pro game. I have had offers already, so it will depend on what is better financially for me on whether I stay amateur or turn professional.”

The offers to turn professional have already come. But if things go her way, Glynn will be in Paris next summer, and there is every chance she will return with a medal of some description. The competition for her signature on a professional contract is likely to be fierce. That ‘loss’ to Testa has only motivated Glynn further. The bitter taste has only motivated her to get even better. You sense Elise Glynn doesn’t need luck to reach Paris, just a fair deal. With it, in Italy early in the new year, she will have what she desires.