Kelsey Leonard – Kildare’s latest professional boxer

Kildare has a new female Professional Boxer after it was announced last week that 26-year-old, Kelsey Leonard, who boxes out of the Unit 3 Boxing Club under Coach Niall Barrett, in Naas, had decided to enter the professional ranks. She will take on Ciara Carter from Newcastle in her first pro fight at the Girdwood Community Hub in Belfast on 2 August.

Describing herself as a “tomboy” when she was young, Leonard told the Kildare Nationalist this week that she started boxing when she was eight after the Head Coach of the Boxing Club in the Curragh dropped in some leaflets into school. 

“I was like, deadly, boxing, I'll have to give that a try,” she said. 

“Growing up I always had two dreams,” she explained. “Go to the Olympics and then turn professional. In the past two years I did try to pursue that. I've represented Ireland for a good few years then I took a bit of a break and came back but the Olympics didn't work out for me.” 

On her decision to turn professional now Leonard told us, “I've always had it in my head that I wanted to turn pro. Even when I was younger in school if the teacher said what do you want to be when you grow up, I would say a boxer.” 

Explaining further she told us, “I didn't really know what it would look like, to be honest. I've only been in Unit 3 for about three years but being in this environment, training around pros and just getting a bit of an insight into it, made me really want to do it even more.” 

Now that she has turned professional how does it feel, we wondered? “Yeah, it feels amazing. It's kind of only settling in now and obviously it took a bit of a while to get the process done but, yeah, I’m delighted,” she beamed.

Her daily routine as a professional boxer won’t change much according to Leonard. “Since I came here (to Unit 3) I've been training like a professional. I've been training with Gary Cully, training with Paul Loonam so I've been training like a professional anyway so that side of things hasn't really changed that much,” she said. 

“Obviously, the media side and the tickets are a little bit new to me. I wouldn't really be doing this interview on a normal day as an amateur,” she laughs. Kelsey has confidence and trust in her own ability. “I don't think you can be involved in this if you don't think you're going be the best and I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think that I could be a world champion. I have the potential to do that, I'm not saying right now but you do definitely have to back yourself, because if you don't, nobody else really will,” Kelsey opined.

Not surprisingly Leonard cites Katie Taylor and Gary Cully as inspirations to her. 

“Gary is more of an inspiration on a personal level because I see him day to day. I see what he has to go through as well to get where he is. The amount of advice and wisdom that he can give me from what he's gone through in the professional game is so inspiring.” 

Kelsey is grateful to her Mam and Dad, Gina and Wayne and sister to Jesse for their support as well the team at Unit 3 Health and Fitness, Naas, Sli Beatha Floathouse, Naas and SDK Detailing. All of those and many more fans from Kildare will be in her corner in Belfast on 2 August. 

However Kelsey has advised that if any businesses or others would be interested in helping her out they should contact her Manager, Niall Barrett at niall.barrett@yahoo.com or 087 2852774.