CONNIE Ramsay is a fighter. Now all she wants to become is a boxer. When it became clear that qualifying for the Rio Olympics was a long shot, the judo bronze medallist from Glasgow 2014 made the hard-headed decision to give up the martial art and concentrate on a career in coaching instead.
That is all going swimmingly but this 28-year-old, originally from the Highlands, needed to get her competitive fix too. She promptly got the boxing bug - even if the noble art has thus far proved resistant to her charms. Despite entering her entire judo history on to her application form for a boxing licence - her Commonwealth bronze was hardly a secret - she found herself disqualified from the 2016 Boxing Scotland Novice Championships on the grounds that, with decades of martial combat behind her, she could not be regarded as a beginner. While Ramsay still struggles to get her head round the decision, it takes more than that to dishearten a feisty competitor like this.
"I tried to qualify for Rio but realised I was going to be too far off," Ramsay said. "I figured that I probably wouldn't be selected for the Europeans or the world championships and obviously with judo not being in the Commonwealth Games [at the Gold Coast in 2018] I had to look within myself and commit to a different path.
"Also I would have had to self-fund for everything. After 20 years of my mum and dad spending all their money on me I had to weigh it up and take a step back and try to give something back into the community with the kids. But I wasn't injured, I don't feel too old to compete in 2018, and touch wood I am not injury prone, so I thought 'what else would I like to do?'."
Ramsay found her options were limited. "I am not very good when it comes to co-ordination so in something like football or rugby I would just be dropping the ball everywhere," she said. "Quite a lot of judo players transform into wrestlers because it is the same skill set but I am not really a wrestler, I am more of a fighter. I am more aggressive than that - in a nice way - so I thought I would give boxing a try. While I was still doing my judo I was doing boxing training but that was more for the fitness and the bags and stuff."
Ramsay went into the Boxing Scotland event with just one bout, a third round loss to former Scottish novices champion Kelly Whalen, under her belt. After stopping her semi-final opponent in the third round, it was a shock when she found she had been disqualified.
"I won my fight, got changed, got a shower, spoke to my coaches, then went to the football game [Conway is a Rangers fan] because I was through in Glasgow anyway," she said. "I came out of the match, had a phone call from my coach, saying that they had caused a riot and disqualified me, because of my previous background in judo.
"They were saying I should have gone into a higher level. I know the rules do say combat sports but I thought because I had never had experience of striking it would be different. If they had come back when I first entered and said we don't want you to fight the novices, that is for complete beginners who have never fought at all before, I would have understood. But the fact they have let me weigh in, not once, but twice, before they disqualified me, I am gutted.
"But I am over that now. It has not put me off, I have had bigger setbacks I will just go back into the gym and see where it goes from here. I might have to go more to club level, shows and stuff like that, to get experience, rather than Boxing Scotland competitions."
The dream lives on and it is quite a dream. Judo is not on the roster for the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast in 2018 but boxing is. Having watched the likes of Josh Taylor and Charlie Flynn find fame at Glasgow 2014, Ramsay's aspiration - achievable or not - is to take inspiration from the likes of Nicola Adams and box for Scotland in Australia. It is no easy task but it does help when you have former super featherweight champion Alex Arthur in your corner.
"I am not going to say I am going to make the Commonwealth games team for boxing then get knocked out first fight," said Ramsay, who idolised fighters like Prince Naseem Hamed whilst growing up. "That might be the goal long term but we will see. Seeing how successful the games were in Glasgow for our Scottish male boxers, that kind of outlook interested me, there might be a door opening with the female boxing."
It is an interesting time to be pursuing a career in pugilism, with memories of tragic Dundonian fighter Mike Towell still fresh in the memory. Ramsay accepts the risks as part of the sport. "No, I don't worry, as long as you are getting looked after," she said. "If you only considered the risk of everything you did you wouldn't get anywhere, cross the road or anything. Boxing has changed a lot of people's lives and taken them places."
*Ramsay is a mentor to disadvantaged young people in Scotland for the Dame Kelly Holmes trust, funded by the People's Postcode Lottery.
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