Team GB boxer Rosie Eccles says her heart has been “ripped out and trodden on” thanks to her dream of making it to the Olympics, but now – with the Paris games just nine weeks away – she has come to see that as a good thing. And after multiple devastating setbacks (including catching Covid four times), she’s finally gearing up for the biggest fight of her life.
For Eccles, her goal of taking home gold began in a small gym in her native Wales. The athlete, now 27, fell in love with boxing as a teenager after attending a boxercise class at the tender age of 15. Fearing those around her wouldn’t understand her newfound passion, she went on to secretly enrol herself at a boxing gym.
“It wasn't looked at as great for women to be strong and box,” Eccles tells Cosmopolitan. “I knew I wouldn't have much support.” Thankfully, she says things have “moved on so much in the last 12 years for women's sport” but still, Eccles knows what it’s like to feel the world isn’t in your corner – a feeling that many of us can relate to, athlete or not.
So, in the eyes of an Olympian: how can we overcome setback after setback to achieve our own version of gold?
From the beginning, Eccles was unwavering about her dedication to a boxing and had so much self-belief, it counteracted the lack of enthusiasm from others around her. She would do whatever it took to train, even sneaking out of her home in the early hours of the morning.
As a teenager, the athlete says she would go to bed in her gym clothes and set an early alarm, before sneaking out the back door of her parents' home and driving her moped to the out-of-town gym. After morning training, she’d rush home and jump back into her bed, pretending she’d just woken up when her usual 7.30am alarm rang. “I don’t know how I had the guts to do it,” the boxer laughs. “I did that for a good couple of months before I got caught.”
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Thankfully, her family recognised her talent and her determination — “they sort of realised I was going to do it anyway” — and she was able to sign up to a gym closer to home, though that wasn’t the end of her challenges. Initially, the coach told her, ‘I don’t train girls’. There were no changing rooms for her either, so she had to make do with the kitchen. But Eccles wasn’t put off.
“I became part of the gym, the boys became like brothers, and very soon I was just treated like everyone else,” she recalls.
In reality, Eccles wasn’t like every other boxer, though. As she’s since proven, she’s world-class. Her achievements include both a gold and silver medal at the Commonwealth Games. But, so far, Olympic glory has eluded her.
Early 2020, she was selected for the first Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualifier in London – but unfortunately, Eccles, who was dealing with an injury, was beaten in her opening bout. She didn’t know it at the time but her team now believes she’d contracted Covid that February. In a rare compilation, the virus attacked the nerves in her arm. “I was in a lot of pain,” Eccles remembers.
The following months would be painful too, for a different reason. Right after Eccles returned home defeated, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the first national lockdown, leaving Eccles isolated as she began to realise the extent of the nerve damage.
“I was in a worse way than I realised. I couldn't even get myself dressed,” Eccles shares.
“When I walked out that ring when I didn’t win, I just wanted the world to swallow me up. I couldn’t believe how much I’d battled to get there, to get the selection, and then it was over like that. Getting home, I was in a lot of pain and I went from worrying so much about boxing to thinking like, ‘I can’t even dress myself properly’.”
Eccles was keen to emphasise that “as much as I struggled, people were having it much worse” during the pandemic, but there’s no doubt she also suffered both physically and emotionally, unsure as to how her future might pan out. “It’s very difficult going from a life that’s regimented: training three times a day, building up to the biggest event of my life and failing, then going into a lockdown… having to deal with the thoughts and a non-functioning body. Not being able to see your friends and family.” It was a lot, she reflects.
Nonetheless, Eccles still refused to give up on her goal, even when, after returning to training, she contracted Covid several more times, including in April 2023, the year she was hoping to qualify for this summer’s Olympics.
“I was less than two months out from the Olympic qualifiers. This was serious,” she recounts. Eccles woke up with a strange feeling in her arm and tried to train but soon the pain was excruciating. It was then that she realised what was happening.
Thankfully, her team had more knowledge this time around on how best to help her. They set her up on different medication and they were able to “scrape her back” in time for the European Games, where she secured a bronze medal and qualified for the 2024 Olympics, bringing her one step closer to her dream.
Now, finally, after years of perseverance, Eccles is just weeks away from stepping into the ring in Paris, and she credits everything she has endured with getting her to the strong position she’s in now.
“It is monotonous and you do spend a lot of time away from home. It’s a big sacrifice, you sacrifice a lot of life and a lot of people. It’s got to be worth it,” Eccles reflects.
Sharing her journey has been a motivator too: “When I work with schools and young people, I always speak to them about the importance of having a dream, something that’s difficult to achieve, because that’s when you really develop your character and that sense of who you are.
“When you walk down that path, you’re going to get your heart ripped out. The resilience bit is picking your heart back off the floor, putting it back in and then walking down that exact same road that almost broke you again.”
She continues: “The thing is, you always get that bit further. You meet the same challenge, the next time you get straight past it. Then you hit the next one and your heart is back on the floor again – and again, you’ve got to pick it up.”
As the Olympics draws closer, the athlete says she’s focusing on what she can control and not what she can’t. Eccles must also reconcile herself with the harsh reality of sporting events like the Olympics: “You don’t always get out what you put in.”
“I can do everything and it still might not be enough on the day,” she explains. “Realistically, I'm going to have to win five fights for gold at the top level.” Then there’s the risk of injury or something else completely unexpected going wrong. But Eccles is optimistic, saying, “I know if I get everything right I have the potential to win gold.”
Eccles knows success is not a guarantee, but she’s got her eyes firmly on the prize and after years of setbacks, she’s ready for her chance. “I feel good,” Eccles shares, beaming. “I'm looking forward to having my shot.”
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Amber O’Connor is Cosmopolitan UK’s former junior features writer, who covers everything from breaking news, women’s safety and real life features to fitness, travel, and cultural trends. She works on first-person features, reports, and long reads, plus the hottest stories of the day (if you want to know about the latest wellness craze or TikTok trends, she’s your girl). Amber has previously worked as a reporter and a lifestyle writer, with her work appearing in numerous publications, including The Mirror, Red Magazine, Evening Standard, Indy100, and Yahoo News. When she’s not working her way through her TBR list, Amber loves dancing, running, and going on adventures with her dog.
