Youth Olympics 2018: Meet Caroline Dubois, Daniel’s kid sister following in Wladimir Klitschko’s footsteps
Exclusive interview: The younger sister of British heavyweight Daniel Dubois is undefeated in 32 amateur fights and is favourite to clinch Team GB's first gold medal in Buenos Aires
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Your support makes all the difference.In 2009, a nine-year-old named Colin walked into a boxing gym in West London.
The younger sibling of hulking British heavyweight Daniel Dubois didn’t grow up watching drummed-up dramas on the Disney Channel. Instead, they spent their evenings watching videos of Daniel boxing at national tournaments and became besotted with the sport. The blueprint to follow him was so simple, except for one thing: Colin’s real name was Caroline.
After convincing her market stall trader dad to train her, it was he who then had to persuade the gym that a dank sock scented warehouse was a suitable environment for his daredevil daughter.
“Dad was a bit hesitant because he didn’t think girls should be boxers, but when he took me [to the gym] he realised how good I was. I didn’t tell my friends I was starting boxing, I don’t really know why. I wasn’t some shy or reserved kid, I just wanted to keep that side of me to myself.”
Caroline is now 17 and it’s safe to assume all her old school friends are aware that she is one of the country’s most prodigious sporting prospects. As she rips hook after hook into a punchbag in Buenos Aires, there is a cornrow tightly tethered to her head for each of her gold medals - Schoolgirls champion, 2x national champion, 3x Three Nations champion, 3x European Junior Champion and a World Junior Champion.
The Youth Olympics may be somewhat of a fleeting presence back home, but in Buenos Aires it's a buzzing bonanza. The airport is overrun by athletes flocking through the terminal in their national tracksuits. Colombian skaters greet Kazakh wrestlers, Bangladeshi hockey players smile at Botswanan swimmers, all teenagers teeming with nerves and excitement.
“I couldn’t believe how big it was”, she says after going through passport control, her delirium masking the subtle bags under her eyes from the fourteen-hour flight to Argentina - the first long-distance trip she’s ever taken.
“I was so excited [when we landed] and saw all the athletes from the other countries. I’ve been to the World and European Boxing Championships but never to a multi-sport event before. Seeing all the signs on the way to the athletes’ village, I realised how huge it is.”
The Mary Teran de Weiss Stadium is the largest indoor arena in Argentina holding 15,500 fans - a stark contrast to the post-Soviet stadium in Sofia, Bulgaria where Caroline won a European gold in July - but for the time being the Starburst coloured seats are all empty.
And as she continues to pounce on the punchbag, in another corner of the arena taekwondo participants practice takedowns, each thud into sponge followed by the sound of lungs deflating. Wrestlers grapple and grunt, karateists create a swoosh with roundhouse kicks and in the middle of it all the pitter-patter metronome of light-sparring. It’s a concerto of combat, a labyrinth of language, the greatest teenage athletes from across the world all refreshing their reflexes side-by-side.
Every competitor in the arena is hoping this trip is simply the dress rehearsal for a second long-haul trip to Tokyo in 2020. Caroline is still undefeated after 32 fights and, although Team GB are yet to claim a single gold medal so far, she is the firm favourite in the girl's 60kg category. Is she nervous? Yes. Fazed? Certainly not.
“I’ve never lost so there’s always that pressure and that drives me on to compete. It makes me nervous but the nerves are really good because they push me on. I’m not coming out here for anything else apart from gold. I’m the person to beat. If they want to beat me they are the ones who need to up their game.”
It’s the same path trod a quarter of a century ago by another younger sibling of boxing grandeur. Wladimir Klitschko also descended on Istanbul, Turkey to fight in the World Junior Championships as Caroline did last April. Klitschko then went on to clinch gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics while his elder brother Vitali turned professional.
The girl introduced as Colin eight years ago is now on the Klitschko blueprint. While Daniel overlooked the Olympics to turn professional when he was 19, Caroline is aiming to win gold in Tokyo before joining him on the quest for world title glory. A win here would go a long way to securing those Japanese air miles.
There has never before been a world champion brother-sister boxing partnership. But standing in a Buenos Aires arena named after Argentina’s first great female tennis player, Caroline too may one day transcend her sport.
“I always train hard. I know that if the Klitschko brothers can do it, we could do it too.”
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