Alex Love

WNYC News | Jan 23, 2012

ALEX LOVE (Flyweight 112lb/51kg)

Alex Love lives in Monroe, WA. The daughter of a Pakistani mother who, as Love says, “taught her how to get 28 hours out of a day and to squeeze a dollar like a dishrag,” she attributes her success to the discipline her parents showed her growing up.

Love played competitive basketball, but quit at 20, feeling that being just over five feet tall was too limiting. And then she read that women’s boxing had been added to the Olympic games. “I just woke up the next day and went downstairs and told my mom I wanted to go the Olympics and she said, “Okay” and went to have a cup of tea.”

Love quit her job and school, put her gloves in her suitcase and drove around the country looking for opportunities to fight. She taught herself to box by reading books and, she jokes, Google. Love coaches herself, systematically logging and planning her workouts, meals and daily schedule.

See the New York Times video.

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