Seanadh Leigh: “I want to be in Los Angeles for the Olympic Games, and I want to win the gold medal.”

Seanadh Leigh: “I want to be in Los Angeles for the Olympic Games, and I want to win the gold medal.”

Her father, Christian, believes his daughter has similarities to the former WBC world featherweight champion Skye Nicolson. He describes his daughter as a classy southpaw. Incredibly high praise. But Seanadh Leigh wants to replicate Nicolson by competing on the Olympic stage. In truth, Leigh wants to go even higher. There are dreams of gold medals at two Olympic Games.

Leigh is trained jointly by her father and John Hinsey at the Denning Boxing Club in Australia. The young protege is all in, and she is incredibly grateful to her sponsor, Brian Fisher Fabrications, for helping her to fulfil her dreams in her sport of choice.

The ambitious and confident 16-year-old started her boxing journey at an incredibly early age. “My brother and my older sister trained at Denning,” Leigh told me over Zoom. “I’d always wanted to do it because we had grown up around boxing. So, on my 12th birthday, I went down to the gym with my brother, and I basically said to my dad that I don’t want to leave this place. This is where I wanted to be, and I have stuck at it since then.”

There was once a passion for football, but in boxing, Leigh found something different. “I had grown up playing team sports, but in boxing, you can’t blame anyone else for doing things wrong or not listening. When you put everything in and win, you know it’s all because of you.”

Leigh is already twenty-four fights into her boxing career. This is even more impressive when the lack of depth in her age and weight categories has restricted her somewhat.

“There is a lack of women in my age category,” Leigh relayed to FightPost. “So, as a schoolgirl, I was fighting girls at the junior and youth level, and now I am a youth fighting lots of seniors.”

At 16, Leigh is already a national champion, but a fight against a vastly more experienced opponent is perhaps her proudest achievement to date. “My best achievement is when I fought Tina Gramatikova, who is 28 years old, at RAC Arena in Perth. So, fighting on a big stage at a big arena with 1,500 people is probably one of my best feelings so far.”

There is an obvious and understandable appreciation for one of the sport’s greatest fighters.”I would love to meet Katie Taylor. I would probably break down in tears if I ever did meet her. It’s the way she goes about things and the fight in her, that fighter’s blood.”     

Unlike many top amateurs, Leigh has no thoughts of turning professional. Her sights are firmly set on Olympic glory at multiple games. “The style I have is not a pro-style at all,” Leigh says. “I suit the amateurs, the quick in and out, the dancing, and the showboating a little bit. The pro-style just wouldn’t suit me whatsoever. I want to be in Los Angeles for the Olympic Games, and I want to win the gold medal. I also want to go to the Brisbane Olympics in 2032.”