‘I had to pretend to be a boy to start boxing – now I’m a world lightweight champion’
To celebrate International Women’s Day The Mirror are looking back at some of the most inspirational women we’ve written about over the last year. From daring campaigners to trailblazers in their fields, on 8th March we celebrate the achievements of women worldwide.
At the age of nine, Caroline Dubois knew she wanted to get into boxing, having been influenced by her brothers at home, but in order to start the sport, she had to pretend to be a boy.
British professional boxer Caroline, 24, started the sport 15 years ago and has held the WBC women’s lightweight world title since December 2024. On Friday, 7 March, she successfully defended her WBC lightweight title in a fight against Bo Mi Re Shin at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Caroline won the fight after the scorecards read 98-93 98-92 to Dubois, with one judge seeing it as a 95-95 draw. After her epic win, the boxer said the match was “rough and tough” – but that didn’t deter the champion from retaining her title.
Ahead of her winning fight and International Women’s Day (8 March), Caroline, who is also the younger sister of boxer Daniel Dubois, spoke exclusively to the Mirror about where it all began, including keeping her true identity under wraps.
Caroline shared: “I started boxing when I was nine years old because it was always on in the house. I attended events on the weekend, and when my brother was fighting, there was always a big hub, excitement and event around it. I realised where the attention and excitement were coming from, and it was boxing – I fell in love with it.
“I always used to watch the big fights when they were on and at nine years old I followed my older brother to the gym after asking my dad if I could go, and it went from there.” However, it wasn’t as easy as turning up alongside her brother as his sister, and instead, Caroline had to pretend to be a boy.
She explained: “When I started boxing, female boxing wasn’t really much of a big thing and women weren’t in the Olympics at that time boxing, so there was no real incentive for the girls to be in the gym. The pros weren’t really doing anything, and there were a lot of amateur clubs that just didn’t have female boxing, and they didn’t allow it. They had a very old-school mindset. So when I went to the club I went to, I had to tell them I was a boy just to get in.”
Joining her brother in the ring, Caroline said he and the rest of the family had to keep her gender under wraps. “Everyone was in on it, and we were just doing our thing,” she said. For around four months, Caroline pretended to be a boy while kickstarting her boxing journey, but when she secured a fight, she had to swiftly leave the club.
She told us: “The club ended up getting me a fight, and I needed my medical done, and I needed to be seen by a doctor, so we had to dip before that all came out, and we went to a different club.” Caroline found a second boxing gym where she was “very open and honest” with the coach about what had happened before.
After some initial doubts, the coach saw her potential, having watched her “train and spot”, and Caroline was able to officially start her boxing journey with confidence. “I was excited when boxing day came around and going to the gym, I was very enthusiastic and very self-driven even then,” she said.
“I grew up in a big family, seven brothers and sisters, and you can easily get lost in the noise of the household and the amount of people in there. So being able to be a boxer, I was able to get that attention and that ability, and I loved it. When I first walked into the gym, I was like, ‘Wow, this is amazing, I love it, I’m good at it and I get attention from it’. There were all those things mixed into it all. I just ran with it and enjoyed every day.”
Reflecting back on that time of having to pretend to be a boy, Caroline shared: “I was only nine so I didn’t really focus on it, I was just thinking, ‘This is great, I absolutely love this’, I didn’t really care, and things go over your head when you’re younger. You don’t really take the magnitude of what’s going on, you just accept it and think, next day, let’s go.”
Following her own experience, Caroline has a positive view of how far boxing has evolved for women. She said: “Like all things, it’s going to take time, and maybe we are quite impatient. But you know, male boxing was a very long time before it became socially accepted. So, when you compare male boxing and female boxing, I think female boxing has probably progressed and moved quicker. But I think we’re moving at a good pace, and it’s going in the right direction.”
Caroline’s favourite aspect of boxing is the individual sport, as she shared: “It’s about achieving your own greatest. Every day we step into the ring, every day we train, every day we go into the gym, it’s a personal journey about finding how good you are, how tough you are and your mental strength. You find out a lot about yourself, you find out how bad you want something, you set a goal, and you drive yourself to achieve that goal. It’s all about setting those personal challenges and I find boxing is a way that you can express that, you find out a lot about yourself, and I enjoy that.”
Caroline Dubois defends her world title against Bo Mi Re Shin as part of a historic all-women’s boxing event on March 7 at the Royal Albert Hall, live on Sky Sports.
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