Spanish women continue to take steps forward to make the sport of boxing shine beyond its borders.
After the conquests of warriors such as María Jesús Rosa, the first Spanish female boxing champion in history, Miriam “La Reina” Gutiérrez, Katharina “Katy” Thanderz, Jennifer “Tormenta” Miranda, Mari Carmen “Mary” Romero, Melania “Chony” Sorroche or Joana Pastrana, Laura Fuertes entered the history of Spanish amateur boxing by becoming the first to win a medal in a World Amateur Women’s Boxing Championship.
That event organized by the IBA had its last edition, in the senior women’s division, in May this year in Istanbul, Turkey. Laura fought in the 50kg category. She fought against Roman Moulai (France), Zlatislava Chukanova (Bulgaria) in the preliminaries and then in the quarterfinals she also beat Argentina’s Milagros Flores in the ring and that was when she secured the bronze medal that would bring tears to her eyes. Then, in the semifinals, she lost to the local Buse Cakiroglu who left the Colombian Ingrit Valencia in second place and won the gold medal for Turkey.
That podium to which Laura Fuertes climbed with the bronze medal is the first one reached by a female boxer in the history of Spain.
Today, at the age of 23, Laura lives a great dream that does not end, as she also longs to be the one to wear an Olympic medal if she gets to the Olympic Games in Paris 2024, in case boxing remains part of the IOC calendar.
She started when she was very young in sports such as swimming. Then she moved on to karate and finally, at the age of 15-16, she decided to take up boxing. By the age of 19, back in 2018, Laura Fuertes was already a promising figure in the women’s national team.
She has won multiple medals in both local and international tournaments. Without going any further, after conquering the medal at the IBA World Championship, she competed in the Mediterranean Games in the Algerian city of Oran to close her season. Laura closed her competition stage so far with another medal.
Undoubtedly, Fuertes, who was born in 1999 in the council (or municipality) of Gijon, within Asturias, has become another indelible mark for the pages of women’s boxing in Spain and the world.
