IPSWICH boxing coach Jessica Cashman is preparing to make Australian sporting history after being selected to lead the nation’s boxing team at the Youth Olympics in Dakar, West Africa, later this month.
The appointment will make Cashman, pictured, the first woman to be sent to an Olympic event by Australia as head boxing coach, putting the local mum in Australia’s corner on one of youth sport’s biggest international stages and breaking new ground for women in Australian boxing.
Hardship to history in Olympic rings victory
Former IBF and WBO middleweight world title holder Desley Robinson said the significance of Cashman’s appointment extended well beyond the Australian team.
“I think having a female coach leading the way for the Youth Olympic team is amazing,” Robinson said.
“It’s a credit to Jessica for achieving this and it’s great for young women to look up to her. Women need strong women to aspire to.”
Long before the State titles, Golden Gloves crown, representative coaching appointments or Australian tracksuit, Cashman said boxing became a way to rebuild her life after a difficult period and the end of her marriage in 2013.
“When I started boxing I was broken as a human being,” she said.
“I had no direction.
“Boxing didn’t just give me a new lease on life but it helped me face my fears and has given me a career in coaching and put me in a place I never thought imaginable.”
After leaving the marriage, Cashman initially turned to Brazilian jiu-jitsu before eventually finding her way into a boxing gym.
Behind that decision were her two sons, Israel and Caesar, with Cashman determined to show them that even the darkest circumstances did not have to define a person’s future, and that their mother could be an image of strength rather than weakness.
“I want people who are in, or have had, their darkest and most tumultuous times, whether it’s similar to mine or their own story, to know that’s not how it has to be and it’s not how the story ends,” Cashman said.
“If a slither of hope or light is what you need, hold on to that. Step by step, we can change our life.”
It is a journey Local Ipswich News has followed for years, describing Cashman in 2023 as “a fighter in every sense of the word”.
“When I started boxing, I was never going to fight,” she said.
“I worked and trained so hard that after my first fight, I loved it.”
That first bout opened doors Cashman could never have imagined, with the Ipswich fighter going on to claim three amateur State titles and a national Golden Gloves crown before turning professional in 2020 and finishing undefeated with two wins from two fights.
Her move into coaching saw her steadily build a resume stretching from grassroots boxing in Ipswich to Queensland and Australian representative duties.
At the same time, she also stepped into the professional corner for four bouts coaching Ipswich fighter Taylah Gentzen.
In another important occasion before she leaves for Dakar, Cashman will be a finalist for Coach of the Year at the Ipswich Sports Awards.
From fighting to rebuild her life to standing in Australia’s corner, Cashman is now preparing to wear the green and gold, answer the biggest bell of her career, and make history.
