Beijing’s Shichahai Sports Complex is the epicenter of women’s boxing in China, the place where Wu Linghong and Li Xiaojing work out daily alongside fourteen other girls who are also pursuing the ambitious challenge of competing in an Olympic Games.
There they train six out of seven days a week under the direction of Tang Erming, who is responsible for the physical and technical preparation of the sixteen girls who share the dream of becoming professional boxers.
The female form of the discipline was included for the first time in the Olympic program in London 2012. This motivated martial arts practitioners to enter a discipline that, in a few years, has seen its first stars emerge.
Linghong, 22, from Jilin Province, is one of them. He started wrestling when he was twelve years old and, despite having suffered a serious knee injury in 2010, he tried his luck in boxing. “It makes you think more, plan a strategy and employ more techniques than free combat,” he said. EFE
Beijing, the cradle of women’s boxing
