Bear Grylls teams up with Nicola Adams tonight, as the avid adventurer teaches his companion the basic skills she needs to survive on a harsh Dartmoor terrain.
While her limits are being tested, Bear – and the show’s viewers – will also get a chance to learn more about the double Olympic gold medallist.
Before you tune in, here’s a head start: read on to find out about her incredible life so far…
What are Nicola’s boxing career’s key highlights?
Nicola Adams OBE is a Leeds-born professional boxer who competed between 2017 and 2019.
She fought and won her first boxing match at just 13 years old. Nicola then went on to make history in 2001 at the age of 19, when she became the first female boxer ever to represent England in a fight against an Irish boxer.
The achievements kept on coming for Nicola. In the summer of 2012, she secured the first women’s boxing Olympic gold medal after defeating Chinese Flyweight boxer and reigning world champion, Ren Cancan.
This victory also made her the first openly LGBT person to win Olympic gold.
Read more: Bear Grylls shares sadness after crew member dies
Nicola then won her second Olympic gold victory in a row in 2016. From late May of that year, she was the reigning Olympic, World and European Games Flyweight champion.
After going pro in 2019 however, Nicola was forced to retire from the sport after the first defence of her world title – a match against Maria Salinas – tore her pupil.
“I’ve been advised that any further impact to my eye would most likely lead to irreparable damage and permanent vision loss,” she wrote in an open letter in the Yorkshire Evening Post.
Nicola Adams’s feats won’t be easily forgotten despite her career coming to an end prematurely and suddenly: she was appointed an MBE in 2013, and an OBE in 2017 for services to boxing.
Where else have I seen Nicola Adams?
Aside from the obvious, cast your minds back to the late noughties, and you might have seen Nicola in the background of your favourite soaps!
Before the International Olympics Committee backed funding for women’s boxing in 2009, she was an acting extra in various episodes of Corrie, Emmerdale and EastEnders, and even worked as a builder as she struggled to self-fund her professional sporting career.
“It’s great fun and the actors are all friendly towards me,” Adams said at the time.
And though she can no longer compete as a boxer, the 38-year-old notably swapped the boxing gloves for dancing shoes last year as she joined the 2020 cast of BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing.
Nicola returned to screens, this time as a frontrunner, and made headlines for being paired up with Katya Jones in Strictly’s first ever same-sex pairing.
Unfortunately, their time on the ballroom floor was cut short after Katya caught Covid-19 and both had to bow out in order to self-isolate.
Nicola, though devastated, thanked her dance partner: “She pushed me way out of my comfort zone and it’s been an incredible experience.”
Read more: Brendan Cole hits out at decision to axe Nicola Adams from Strictly Come Dancing
Is Nicola in a relationship?
She is, and happily so!
Nicola met her model partner Ella Baig, 23, during a 2018 night out in Leeds. They’ve been together ever since.
The pair publicly celebrated their 3rd anniversary yesterday with a compilation of romantic throwback photos.
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Nicola and Ella bought their first home together up north in 2019, and even share a pet dog called Brooklyn.
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