Best is yet to come reveals champion Adams

SUCCESS at the first European Games was a major step on the road to Rio for Yorkshire’s Olympic boxing champion Nicola Adams.
Nicola Adams of Great Britain celebrates her victory over  Sandra Drabik of Poland in the women's fly boxing final at the 2015 European Games in Baku. Piicture: AP/Dmitry Lovetsky)Nicola Adams of Great Britain celebrates her victory over  Sandra Drabik of Poland in the women's fly boxing final at the 2015 European Games in Baku. Piicture: AP/Dmitry Lovetsky)
Nicola Adams of Great Britain celebrates her victory over Sandra Drabik of Poland in the women's fly boxing final at the 2015 European Games in Baku. Piicture: AP/Dmitry Lovetsky)

Adams, the 32-year-old from Leeds, added to her list of achievements by beating Poland’s Sandra Drabik on a majority decision to win flyweight gold at the championships in Baku.

Two of the judges scored the fight 39-37 in Adams’s favour, with the other seeing it as a 38-38 draw.

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The hard-fought triumph completed a comeback from shoulder surgery last year and followed on from historic gold medals at the 2012 Olympics and last year’s Commonwealth Games.

Adams has already indicated she plans to box on until the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and is now focusing on being in top form and condition for next year’s Brazil festival.

“Every medal means a lot to me and this is a good lead-up to Rio,” Adams told The Yorkshire Post as she stepped off the plane in Leeds at the weekend.

“That is the next big thing. This is part of the preparation to let me know where I am at and where I need to improve moving forward.”

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Despite her glittering list of successes, Adams – who was made an MBE in 2012 – is adamant she can improve and will need to in order to achieve her dream of retaining an Olympic title.

“It is one of those sports where you are always improving, all the time,” she stressed.

“There’s a few smaller tournaments coming up and then the qualifiers (for the Olympics)] at the end of the year. Preparing for that is all on-going.”

The European Games were held for the first time this month and Adams reflected: “It was really good, an amazing experience.

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“It was nice to be able to bring a bit of history home for Great Britain.

“I think it (the European Games)can get bigger – and I’d like to see it come to Yorkshire!”

Adams’s status as one of Britain’s most admired athletes was underlined when she was chosen to carry the flag at the opening ceremony.

“That was amazing, it was an honour to be chosen and I was really happy about it,” she added.