Madi Gittins: “The Olympics are the dream.”

Madi Gittins: “The Olympics are the dream.”

If women’s boxing is to keep moving forward, it needs a new generation of talent to come through the ranks. The 21-year-old Madi Gittins is a fighter seemingly perfectly placed to carry her sport forward well into the next decade.

Born and bred in Hull, Gittins has been around sports most of her life. An active upbringing surrounded by a large, supportive family. “I’ve always been sports-minded,” Gittins told FightPost. “At one point, I was doing four different sports at the same time, including football, dance, boxing, and squash. It became too much, and I had to choose to put one first, and it was always going to be boxing.”

“Education was never really for me,” Gittins added. “I never sat my GCSEs because of Covid. I tried college, but I dropped out after the first year to concentrate on my boxing. I worked part-time in a takeaway for a while and then moved on to an apprenticeship with EB. I now work part-time in a bar, and I put my full focus on boxing. I don’t really have any other hobbies, but in my spare time, when I’m not dieting, I do love baking, but it’s quite hard to do on a diet, though.”

The boxing life began incredibly early for Gittins. “I started at 8 years old because I went to St Paul’s to watch my brother and cousin. But I was bored watching, and I wanted to join in. I said I’d just join in with the circuits at first. I didn’t want to do any punching. But from there, I gradually joined in with more of the session and loved it. I spent thirteen years with St Paul’s Boxing Academy and recently moved on to BoxClub in Hull.”

“Over the years, boxing has given me so much confidence,” Gittins says when I ask what the attraction of boxing is. “I was quite shy when I was younger and not very good at social interactions. But I’m so much better now, and I think it’s from training camps and trips abroad with England Boxing, where you have to interact with teammates you’ve never met before. Boxing has given me discipline, too, as it’s not a sport you can do half-heartedly, especially if you want to get to the top. It’s given me so many friends as well.”

But there is another side to her sport. “The lows are so low in boxing, and the lowest time was probably losing my first Senior Elite National Final on a 3-2 split. To get through these, you just have to get straight back in the gym and work on things that went wrong. You can’t dwell on the lows that boxing gives you. You just have to keep it going.”

Gittins is now fifty-seven fights into her boxing career. But memories of her first-ever bout are still vivid. It was a night that didn’t quite go to plan. “I had my first fight when I was 10 years old, and I actually got quite badly beaten. I turned up to the venue, which was about a three-hour journey away, and the girl was over two kilos heavier than me. At the time, I was only 30-odd kilos, so it was quite a lot, but because we’d travelled, my coach still took the fight. I got given a few counts and lost badly.”

Madi Gittins recovered well from her nightmare start. An experience that many would have been prompted to try something else. There have been many highs, but a few moments stand out. “My highlight is definitely winning the National Senior Elite Title at the weekend just gone. After losing tight decisions for the past two years and finally getting my hands on that belt, it was unreal. Other highlights are getting selected for the Youth Europeans in 2022 and trips abroad with England Performance in 2024/25.”

Gittins is aiming high. Aspirations of getting on Team GB. But Olympic glory is her long-term goal. “The Olympics are the dream,” Gittins told me. “But turning pro isn’t something I’d turn down. I’m going to look at my options in the future. At the moment, I’m just enjoying the journey and enjoying gaining all the experience I can.”