Southside Boxing Academy starlet enjoys 'Cinderella story' after becoming British champion
A Toryglen boxing coach says it's a real 'Cinderella story' as his daughter went from a career-threatening injury to becoming British champion in a year.
Ava Allison, 15, tore her meniscus, and suffered cruciate and collateral ligament damage in a training accident.
But at the end of May, Ava won the junior 60kg category at the GB Tri Nations Championships at the Sophia Gardens Stadium in Cardiff.
That was Ava's first gold British medal, though she is three-time Scottish and Western District champion.
Dad and coach Bryan at Southside Boxing Academy said: 'A year ago, Ava couldn't walk, was 82kg and didn't know when she was going to be able to walk again without pain, because she did everything possible to do to your knee.
'With that injury, if that happens to you or I, it usually means your career is done, you don't recover from that, but Ava had age on her side. It would have been easier to quit.
'A year later, she's lost 22kg and became British boxing champion.
'It was a freak injury, but that ruled her out for about two years. Rehab started a year ago on June 5, and this is where she is now, she has turned it around completely.
'In the boxing world, all your top-level boxers' parents are rich, own their gyms and all that, but Ava is from the council estate, a real Cinderella story.
'For every wee boy or girl who is told 'you can't do that' or 'you're not good enough', this proves that if she can do it, they can do it.'
The King's Park Secondary School pupil has been working hard, and Bryan said: 'Ava beat the Welsh champion in her own back yard, unanimously, then beat an unbeaten English champion, who had stopped her six previous opponents.
'She's been doing it since she was seven years old. She's really dedicated, training six times a week, and what it makes it more remarkable is that Ava has done her National 5 exams and done seven of them.'
Bryan hopes for further success in the near future, and said: 'We'll be travelling to the Hull Box Club at the end of the month and in her group is the Czechia champion.
'The European Championships is next month in Serbia, from July 15 to 25, and I would like to think she would get selected, but they forgot about Ava.
'Because of her injury she hadn't boxed for Scotland in nearly two years, and she went down there and absolutely knocked it out the park.'
Big things are afoot for the club, too, with a move to a larger site.
Bryan said: 'We're moving to the Geoff Shaw centre, which is a bigger premise. We're effectively training out of a big room, and we've produced a British champion every year for the last five years – imagine what we could achieve with an actual facility!'
Southside Boxing Academy's Zain Iqbal won silver, losing out in his final to Welsh champion Shane McIntyre.
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