Muggers Didn't Know She Was a Boxing Champ

Two men tried to rob a 26-year-old woman on her way to a gym in Chicago last weekend. They picked her out, stopping her to ask directions minutes before they attacked. "I'm a normal-looking girl. I'm a normal person," Claire Quinn said. "I'm not some jacked-up boxer." But she is a fighter, with four years of training and competitive boxing experience. When one of the men came up behind her, pushed her onto the ground, punched her in the forehead, and demanded her phone, she was ready to go. "A man hits me, I'm firing back," Quinn told Block Club Chicago. "I just kept throwing my right hand to his balls," she said. "There's no way to sugarcoat that or put it nicely."

Quinn was able to hold onto her phone, and the men ran to a car and drove away. She did suffer a mild concussion when her head hit the sidewalk but turned down medical attention, per Fox News. Later that morning, she went ahead to Unanimous Boxing Gym for her training session. A Golden Gloves champion in her weight class and age group, Quinn usually trains four days a week. "My right hand knocks girls out," she said. "It can do some damage." Quinn said later that her story is a lesson in the importance of self-defense training for women. "If anything, I’ll let it define me as something powerful to make other women feel powerful." (More boxing stories.)