Roxanne Seymour, a 35-year-old native of Bournemouth, England, has been confined to a wheelchair since 2019. Boxing was life-changing and today she wants to be one of the first adaptive professional boxers and among the first to represent this discipline in the Paralympics.
Boxing is currently excluded from the Paralympic Games, but Roxanne hopes to see it included by 2028. The fight for Paralympic recognition and the dream of competing are powerful motivators, driving her to make regular, extensive trips to New York to train.
For her NYC is “prestigious for boxing” and a place where she feels “as much at home” as she does in England.
“I want to be one of the first adaptive professional boxers and I want to be among the first to represent this discipline in the Paralympics” said Roxanne.
Currently, there's no established path for professional wheelchair boxing.
“Boxing was life changing. Mentally it took me out of quite a dark place and physically it gave me a new decent life”
"When you are in a wheelchair, you are always reminded of what you can’t do. But how about talking about what you can? I don’t want to feel small. So, if I know that I can get my chair up the stairs then I'll do it myself. Because then, I feel a little bit more confidence every time”
Marc, Roxanne's boxing trainer, traveled with her to New York in September 2023 to train her and help her accomplish her dream of becoming a professional boxer.
Getting ready for a training session.
Roxanne has an intensive training routine : usually six days a week.
Often people don’t see wheelchair boxers as athletes. They think they are fragile. Roxanne is determined to challenge this perception.