Christina Desmond needs to box clever ahead of her biggest test

The name Nouchka Fontijn will mean nothing to most people. She is the Dutch European champion middleweight boxer and ranked at number two in the world behind American Olympic champion Claressa Shields.

The difference in achievement between Fontijn and Irish middleweight Christina Desmond is vast. The Dutch girl sits second out of 40 boxers ranked by the international federation, AIBA, and Desmond is not even listed.

Yet last month in Turkey Desmond took down Fontijn in the Olympic Qualifying event to scramble the Dutch girl’s Rio hopes and post a tournament upset to rank along Katie Taylor’s defeat to Azeri boxer Yana Alexseevna.

Desmond did not qualify for Rio but will go into next week's World Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan loaded with the experience of knowing that she has enough ability to make anything happen. The wonder of boxing is that sometimes that's all it needs.

When the World Championship draw takes place on Thursday after the tournament weight-in Desmond could face Fontjin or Shields in the first round of 32. Shields also throws up interesting sub-narratives.

Watchful

Raised in a food stamp household in Flint, Michigan with an addict mother, Shields did not speak until she was five years old and as a child was horrifically raped and molested on a daily basis.

After becoming Olympic champion as a teenager, she adopted her cousin's child and is now under the watchful eye of former Irish head coach Billy Walsh. The Dutch fighter aside, it is "Murphy's Law" says Desmond that, if it's not Fontijn, she will be drawn against Shields.

“Anything can happen,” says the Irish middleweight, who turned 20-years-old during the Rio Qualifiers in Turkey. “I know it’s a possibility that I could meet Claressa Shields and obviously have Billy Walsh in the opposite corner. Every girl could have it [Walsh in the opposite corner]. The boys could have it in the Olympics. It’s a possibility.

“If I did meet her it’s just another fighter. Everyone has two legs and two feet. She has so many achievements but if I draw her I have to fight her. I won’t be surprised. The Multi Nations I went to I drew the number three in my first round, drew the number two in my second . . . Murphy’s Law exactly.”

In her callow way, she can see both the distance between her place at the boxing high table and that of the more experienced opponents and also ignore it. Psychological armour has always been part of the boxing defence plan every bit as much as head guard and gum shield and Desmond is no different. She will use her win over the European champion as leverage in Astana.

“That win [against Fontijn] was unreal,” she says. “Going into the competition the whole group didn’t want to draw her. She is the best [European] in the weight and the rightful champion at the weight. I trained with her so I knew exactly what I was up against. I went in with a clear mind. I had nothing to lose.

“It was huge. If you had told me going out there I was going to beat her – that would have been my competition. I would have been happy with that. Obviously I was disappointed that I didn’t get the win over the Hungarian [Petra Szatmari], which was a very close fight as well. I’d say with a bit of experience I would have won it. I can’t complain.”

Another layer to Desmond’s win is that it is the Cork fighter’s first year in senior boxing. She has been in the sport since an 11-year-old who trained over Christmas with her twin brother Michael as a means of keeping fit for her GAA club Naomh Abán. She never stopped.

“He’s my twin brother so I had to copy him,” she says.

Inspirations

GAA is still her passion. But when sports collide there's never enough time in the day. She let go of the football but it is still part of her DNA and one of her inspirations alongside Katie Taylor is the 16 times All-Ireland camogie and football winner Briege Corkery.

“At 16 or 17 I was playing every day, twice a day sometimes. It just wasn’t doable,” she says. “I was picked for my first Irish team for the European Union team when I was a youth. A week before I flew out I had a football match.

“The way I looked at it was if I got injured in a football match and couldn’t go to the championships . . . I picked the boxing. Obviously I’d like to represent Cork in football but would I like to represent my country or my county . . . I picked the country.

“Since I moved up to senior Katie has been supportive and has always said that everything is possible. She is an idol and I would look up to her. But I’d look up to Briege Corkery too. She is a local super star around here.”

The move to middleweight’s 75kg from 69 kg is a work in progress. Adding around 12 pounds of lean muscle without losing speed and balance should be done cautiously. Fontijn was taller and bigger than Desmond. Most in the middleweight division are.

But the imperative for all of the women on the Irish team has been to move into one of the three Olympic weight divisions and sometimes that’s not a perfect fit, especially at the beginning.

Paddy Barnes experimented and moved up one weight division. It didn't work. Darren O'Neill bravely stepped up to heavyweight from middleweight in recent years but fell short of Rio.

For the three women’s Olympic categories, flyweight, lightweight and middleweight, Olympic qualification is an additional reward in Astana with a semi-final place securing an invitation to Rio. Desmond is stoic about her chances and knows that despite the win over Fontijn in Turkey, she’s not yet naturally settled in at 75kg.

Experience

“This is my first year senior. I am the baby of the group so,” she says. “All the women I faced were older than me and I knew that they were more physically developed.

“I still have a child’s body really. I’m only developing now. Nouchka is 28. She’s been training her body years. I started into a professional training environment in January, so I knew I was going to be the underdog going into the competition. Mentally too it was a big step up. I know it’s amateur but it is professional in how you carry yourself. I didn’t enjoy it when it was happening but looking back I did. It was an experience.

“I don’t think a lot of people thought I was up to that level because I had moved up to middleweight. I was a 69 kg boxer, a small 69 kg at that. Height is a big factor. Most of the girls in my weight are maybe a foot taller. They are all tall and big built. I’m small in middleweight.

“Nouchka was four or five inches taller than me. I’m not a proper 75kg.  I’m not fat but I’m a roundy 75. It will take a few years to . . . No one understands that.”

Astana and the World Championships is a challenge regardless of the draw. So was Samsun in Turkey for the qualifiers, where in one stunning performance she carved her name into the international scene. Rio will bea new canvas for those who make it. In that there is still wonder for Desmond but maybe less fear.

“I grew up on a small farm, played GAA since I was a baby,” says the boxer summing up her pedigree.

If anyone does, Billy Walsh will know the value of that.