Lara Brown: “I want to go to the Commonwealth Games and win the gold medal.”

Lara Brown: “I want to go to the Commonwealth Games and win the gold medal.”

The 2026 Commonwealth Games is now only a few weeks away. Next month, Glasgow will play host to the sporting extravaganza. A celebration of sport. A feel-good parade of sporting talent. Lara Brown will be a part of it. The Scottish fighter will be part of an 11-strong Scottish boxing team that will head to Glasgow with ambitions of winning medals. Brown is more than hopeful of adding to that medal tally.

Born in Melrose, a small town in the Scottish Borders, Brown is excited to make her debut Commonwealth Games appearance on home soil. “It means the absolute world to me,” Brown told me over Zoom. “I was over the moon when I found out. It has been a dream of mine for ages, and to finally do it is just great.”

“I obviously knew I was on the long list,” Brown added. “I knew I was in contention to be selected. I thought I might have done enough, but it was still a surprise when I got the phone call. I was so happy. I just burst into tears. It was just an amazing feeling.”

Like many, Brown found her way into boxing by way of another sport. “I started training at the Bronx, my local boxing club, about three years ago. I used to play football and a load of other sports. My dad always used to do the pads with me, and I enjoyed that for my fitness. I got a bit bored with the football, and I just said to my dad that I wanted to try the boxing. He took me to the gym, and I have never looked back.”

Brown, who will turn 19 this weekend, feels she was more suited to boxing. “I think I was always built for a solo sport,” Brown says. “If I win, it’s all on me. If I lose, that’s on me as well. In football, you have to rely on other people. And it’s quite good punching people in the face.”

“Everything,” Brown said when I asked what boxing gives her. “Discipline. It just gives me something to focus on. I just love it. I am one of those people who need something to train for, and boxing gives me that focus. It’s my main focus in life.”

Brown is now 17 fights into her career. A career that is still very much in the embryonic stages. But she has already found success. A silver at the Tri-Nations. Brown won the Golden Girl Box Cup in Sweden in January and has claimed gold at the Scottish Intermediate championships. Brown also has a bronze medal in the GB tournament in March on her resume. In many ways a highly impressive start to her boxing career. But those 17 fights could have been a whole lot more. “I was training for a year before I got a fight. Girls kept pulling out.”

But despite that slow start, Brown has built up a more than solid start to her journey in boxing. The medals gained so far strongly indicate even more will follow. Brown hopes her success continues in Glasgow. “Obviously, I want to go to the Commonwealth Games and win the gold medal,” Brown says. “But I just want to box to the best of my ability, and if I do that, I believe I can win gold.”

For someone so young, the 18-year-old doesn’t seem overly concerned by fighting on a big stage like the Commonwealth Games. “I’m not one to get phased by the crowd. Obviously, it’s great to have that home crowd backing me. But I am just focused on the job in hand.”

Lara Brown is incredibly level-headed about her immediate future. “I’ll just see what happens,” Brown says. “I’d love to stay amateur and get on the GB setup and aim for the Olympics. But if I medal in Glasgow, or even win the gold medal, and an opportunity to turn professional came up with the right promoter, then I would consider that. But I just want to keep boxing, really. I think what happens in the Commonwealth Games will decide what I will do.”