Women's boxing
Although women have participated in boxing for almost as long as the sport has existed, female fights have been effectively outlawed for most of boxing's history until recently, with athletic commissioners refusing to sanction or issue licenses to women boxers, and most nations officially banning the sport. Reports of women entering the ring go back to the 18th century. Historical overview One of the earliest mentions of women’s boxing is in the travelogue of a German man who visited London in 1710. While taking in a men's boxing match, he met a woman in the audience who claimed to have previously boxed another woman in the same venue. One of the earliest known women’s boxing matches to have been advertised in print was in London between Elizabeth Wilkinson and Hannah Hyfield in 1722. Billing herself as the "European Championess", Wilkinson and her husband would also fight other mixed couples as a pair, with Wilkinson fighting the other woman, and her husband fighting the other man. In those days, the rules of boxing allowed kicking, gouging and other methods of attack not part of today's arsenal. Women's boxing first appeared in the Olympic Games as a demonstration sport in 1904, in