Welsh Olympic hero Jade Jones will get her new career underway next month
Kasra Moradi Senior Sports Journalist
11:15, 17 Feb 2026
Former Olympic champion Jade Jones has moved into boxing(Image: Jade Jones/ Instagram)
Two-time Olympic taekwondo champion Jade Jones has announced her debut boxing match for March.
The 32-year-old claimed gold medals for Team GB at both the 2012 London Olympics and the 2016 Rio Olympics. But after dominating the world of taekwondo and winning gold again at the 2019 World Championships, the Welsh athlete revealed 12 months ago that she would be changing sports.
Jones has now confirmed she will take to the ring on March 7 in a Misfits Boxing event. She takes on American internet personality Egypt Criss in Derby on the undercard of a clash between middleweights Ty Mitchell and Gabe Rosado.
Criss, 27, is the daughter of hip-hop stars Anthony ‘Treach’ Criss from Naughty by Nature and Sandra ‘Pepa’ Denton from Salt-N-Pepa. Jones, known as the Headhunter thanks to her ferocious kicks, posted several snaps of her training in the ring as she shared the news.
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She wrote: “Three weeks to go! I step into a boxing ring. The clock is ticking. Making every day count. Time to rest the feet and see what the hands are saying!”
The Welsh star suffered an early exit at the 2024 Paris Games as her hopes of winning a third Olympic gold medal were dashed. But since finding her new passion, Jones is determined to see how far she can go on her boxing journey.
“It’s nice to have a fresh start,” Jones told The Smith Brothers. “It’s a new challenge. I wouldn’t be here to just get knocked out and get a bit of money.
Jones explained why she made the move into boxing(Image: YouTube/The Smith Brothers: Not A Podcast)
“I want to take it step by step, one fight at a time, to kind of enjoy the journey again,” she added, suggesting the enjoyment wasn’t always there towards the end of her taekwondo career. “[I’m] definitely aiming to be world champion. I believe in myself, I believe in the ability and I’ll just take each fight at a time and see.”
She continued: “I do just generally love a scrap as well, I think that’s what people don’t get. They’re like, ‘Do you not want to keep your face?’ But I love to fight, I love to scrap, it’s fun to me.”
She was backed up on the YouTube show by Stephen Smith, with whom she began boxing training at the start of 2025. Her comments followed an interview with BBC Breakfast last year where she confessed to the moments of doubt she has felt since making the switch.
Jones won two Olympic gold medals in taekwondo(Image: PA)
She said: “It is nerve-wracking. Some days I wake up and think, ‘Am I absolutely crazy?’ “I am loving it. I love taekwondo, it will always be my first love. But this is an exciting challenge.
“I don’t know what gave me the idea, I was sat in my kitchen and thought, ‘I’ll try boxing.’ My family all think I’m crazy but people who know me know it is inside me, I love to have a fight and a scrap.
“People can follow my journey, the good, the bad and the ugly. Can I get to the top? Will I fail? The dream is to be a world champion. To be a world champion in two sports would be pretty cool.”