As part of LGBT History Month, Touchstone is profiling a famous LGBT person a week on our website . This week, we are celebrating the boxer, Leeds loiner and bisexual woman, Nicola Adams.

 
Nicola Adams, MBE (born 26 October 1982) is a British boxer and the first woman to win an Olympic boxing title. The Gold Medal winner at the 2012 Summer Olympics held in London, as of 2015 she is the reigning Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games and European Games champion at flyweight. She was the first ever female boxing champion at both the Olympic and Commonwealth Games.
Adams was named the most influential LGBT person in Britain by The Independent in 2012. She also became the first openly LGBT person to win an Olympic boxing Gold medal, after her win at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Nicola was born in Leeds and attended the Agnes Stewart Church of England High School in Burmantofts. She started boxing professionally from a young age and fought, and won, her first match at the age of 13.
Her sporting awards and achievements are as follows:

YearTournamentVenueResultEvent
2007European Amateur ChampionshipsVejle, Denmark2nd54 kg
2008World Amateur ChampionshipNingbo, People’s Republic of China2nd54 kg
2010World Amateur ChampionshipBridgetown, Barbados2nd51 kg
2011European Union Amateur ChampionshipsKatowice, Poland1st51 kg
2011European Amateur ChampionshipsRotterdam, the Netherlands1st51 kg
2012Summer OlympicsLondon, United Kingdom1st51 kg
2014Commonwealth GamesGlasgow, United Kingdom1st51 kg
2015European GamesBaku, Azerbaijan1st

In 2012 she became the first female boxer to receive an award from the Boxing Writers’ Club of Great Britain. Specifically, she was awarded the Joe Bromley Award for outstanding services to boxing. She was also the first woman ever to be invited to the club’s awards ceremony.
She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2013 New Year’s Honours for services to boxing.
In 2015 she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by the University of Leeds.