Bradford College boxer jets to Canada

A Bradford College student tipped to become the next Nicola Adams has flown to Canada to take on an Olympian.

Nineteen-year-old Jade Ashmore was invited on an all-expenses-paid trip to the country to fight Canadian Mandy Buyold, 30, who finished fifth in the Rio games last summer.

The Canadian’s coach reckons rising star Jade has the potential to challenge his athlete and so contacted her on social media to issue the invitation.  

The teenage England international was thrilled to accept and jetted to Canada on Thursday to fight her host on April 1 before spending a week on training camp with the Canadian team.

“It is a great opportunity for me to test myself against a senior international,” said Jade, who studies sport at Bradford College which has a dedicated boxing gym and counts double Olympic gold medallist Nicola Adams among its former students.

“She is far more experienced than I am. She has had hundreds of senior bouts whereas I have had less than 10 so it will be really good to see where I am compared to her.

“I am really looking forward to the camp too. It will be good to hear from other coaches and be a good test of how I adapt to being in a different country, in a different environment out of my comfort zone.

“It will also be excellent preparation for the Elite National Championships which take place at London’s York Hall at the end of April.”

Jade was contacted via Facebook while on a Great Britain assessment camp at the English Institute Of Sport in Sheffield.

She is set to learn, whilst in Canada, whether she will be called into the national development squad which would essentially make her a full-time athlete.

“It was a four-day camp where we were assessed on our physical and technical ability,” she said.

“If I make the squad I would attend the Institute of Sport eight days a month for intense training and development work.”

Accompanying Jade on the transatlantic trip will be her boxing coach at Bradford College, Mally McIver, who also worked with former student Mo Ali from Keighley who represented Great Britain in Rio. Another of his students is male boxer Harris Akbar who earlier this month was called into the Great Britain Podium Potential squad.