10 great female England Boxing National Junior champions – part one

Part one of England Boxing’s look back at some of the best boxers to come through as female winners at the  National Junior Championships, dating back to 2007.

It’s an impressive list featuring some names that are already well known – and others who are set to be future stars.

Here are the first five in our list.

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1. Savannah Marshall

Back in 2008, the Hartlepool Headland boxer was a victor at Under 70kg over J. Brierly of Chadd. Four years later she became the first British female amateur world champion with gold at the 2012 World Championships. She went on to win Commonwealth Games gold for England in 2014 and remains the only boxer to have defeated Claressa Shields as an amateur or professional and now boasts and 8-0 record after turning pro.

2. Charley Davison

Winning the National Junior Championship twice in the consecutive years of 2009 and 2010 with Triple A, it is more recently that the Suffolk mum of three has returned to the sport and shot back into the spotlight. Securing the England Boxing National Amateur Championships title for Attleborough in 2019 caught the attention of the GB selectors and she is in the squad hoping to clinch a place in the rearranged Tokyo 2021 Olympics, having won her second round bout against Ireland’s Carly McNaul before March’s European Qualifying Tournament in London was suspended part way through because of the Coronavirus outbreak.

3. Sandy Ryan

The One Nation boxer from Derby tasted success as a junior in 2010 at Under 63kg when she triumphed over Heart of Portsmouth’s Billie Felton. It was the prelude to a superb first senior tournament in 2014, when she claimed a World Championships silver medal for England in Jeju City. Further successes came in the European Championships in Sofia in 2016, where she claimed a bronze medal, and the 2018 Commonwealth Games, where she came home from the Gold Coast with gold.

4. Terri Harper

The Yorkshire boxer has become a big name as a professional, holding the IBO female super-featherweight title since 2019 and the WBC female super-featherweight title since February 2020, not least after her split draw with Liverpool’s Natasha Jonas, the first time two British women had contested a world professional title. But it was in a 17-bout amateur career that the former Oxers Gym boxer underlined her potential, winning a National Junior Championship in 2012, getting the better of North Mersey’s Sophie Colebourn.

5. Karriss Artingstall

It is with the British Army Boxing team that the Cheshire boxer did much of her training prior to linking up with the GB squad, but it was with first club Macclesfield ABC that she first tasted glory as a teenager, winning the National Junior title in 2012 at Under 57kg, defeating Ambreen Sadiq of Eastburn. She repeated the trick a year later (beating Tavern’s Kimberley Rowes) and went on to win the England Boxing National Elite Championships (now National Amateur Championships) in 2018 with victory over Crystal Barker of Hook and Jab. Last August, Artingstall claimed a silver medal at the European Championships for England, helping her claim a place in the GB squad for the Olympic qualifiers.

Don’t forget to see the remaining five boxers to make our list by clicking here.