Jade Jones, the 33-year-old Welsh taekwondo star, has found a new sporting path in boxing after her Olympic dreams ended. She has won her first two fights by knockout and is now preparing for the toughest test of her new career.
From taekwondo to the ring
Jones, who took up taekwondo at the age of eight, saw her hopes of a third Olympic gold medal dashed twice, most recently in Paris in 2024. After that defeat, she felt her time in the sport was over.
"I was kind of chasing that history and you don't realise at the time, but it did become a bit monotonous," she told WalesOnline. "I loved the sport, I loved fighting, but I didn't realise I kind of got a little bit stale there."
But the fighter once nicknamed the Headhunter was not ready to walk away. "When I left, I didn't feel ready to give up sport. I still had so much fire and drive and fight in me," she said. "But I couldn't do another Olympic cycle and stay in the same place. So yeah, boxing kind of sprung on me out of nowhere."
Knockout wins and a title shot
Jones has carried her aggressive style into boxing. "I do kind of have the same problem," she laughs. "I always forget to go to the body and I am always hunting for that, you know, that killer shot, that knockout."
It has proven effective. She won by knockout in the second round of her debut against American reality star and singer Egypt Criss in March, then beat Argentinian influencer FederiKita in May. On September 12 in Newcastle, she faces former MMA and current Powerslap star Sheena Bathory, with the Misfits super middleweight title on the line.
Jones is aiming high. "The first thing I said to Mams [Taylor], the promoter, was 'I'm gonna be the face of Misfits, Women's Misfits'," she said. "I've come into this thinking, 'I wanna take over, you know, in this space and I wanna be the best that there's been in this Misfits world for now'."
Pressure and a new diagnosis
Jones admitted she "didn't have the balls" to win after her first-round exit to Miljana Reljikj in Paris. "The pressure to try to create that history made me feel like a failure if it didn't happen rather than, you know, having the will to win," she said. "I put too much pressure, too much expectation and it almost became not fun anymore."
Her recent ADHD diagnosis, she says, helped explain her struggles. "In school and growing up, I used to struggle all the time but didn't understand what it was," she said. "I just feel like it's very lucky I found sport, because that kind of caters for ADHD and almost medicates it. I genuinely believe it's the ADHD that's helped me hyper-focus and obsess on these sports to become the best."
Grandfather's memory
Her grandfather Martin, who set her on the road to sporting stardom, passed away in November and never saw her box. "It's just gutting really," she says. "He's seen this journey from the scratch. I think if anything, he'd be so proud that I mentally handled it because he used to say, 'there's no doubt you'll be good, but it's just whether you've got it up top'. So I'd like to think I've proved to him that I have."
