BBC Interviews Local Trailblazing Boxer Grandchamp
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Local boxing champion Gail "Champ" Grandchamp is featured on the BBC World Service Radio Network this week.
The interview with her will be broadcast on WBRK Radio 1340-AM during the "Evan Valenti Show," a local sports show, at 10 a.m. on Friday, March 11. The 12-minute interview can also be heard on the BBC site here.
Grandchamp was selected by the BBC to be interviewed for Women's History Month this March. The North Adams native fought in the courts for eight years for the right to enter the boxing ring after being banned from entering her first competition in 1984.
"It was horrible to sit on the sidelines and watch them compete," she told the BBC. "But I realized that it was a sex discrimination case and I needed to do something about it now or it was never going to change."
Initially the interview was to take place on April 16 to mark the 24th anniversary when Grandchamp won her suit against the U.S. Amateur Boxing Federation, but it was done live on Tuesday, March 8, International Women's Day.
"It was very exciting," Grandchamp said on Thursday of being interviewed by BBC broadcast journalist Rebecca Kesby. The remote interview was done from the studios at WBRK, where Grandchamp has hosted her own show, "Champ's Winner's Circle."
Although she won her case in 1992, it would not be until 2009 that the Olympic Committee determined it would allow women to compete as boxers. Grandchamp has been a continued advocate for women's representation in boxing, including in the Olympics.
She was told that BBC sports had tried to find her in 2012 to interview her at the first women's boxing at the Olympics, where Nicola Adams of Great Britain won the gold in featherweight. Grandchamp had attended the trials but did not get to the Olympics that year.
"They thought it would be a great honor to let women know why they were there," she said. "Why they have the right to do it."
Grandchamp, now a trainer and motivational speaker from her studios on State Street, said the interview was wide ranging, talking about her background, her interest in boxing, and her battle to be treated as an equal in what had been exclusively a man's sport.
"They wanted to know everything, how I grew up, what happened to me, what did I think about boxing," she said. "I did a pretty lengthy story. What a great honor it was to do it from London, too, with the BBC."
The interview was broadcast as part of the BBC's "Sporting Witness" program, which focuses on prominent and trailblazing sports figures, and memorable sporting events. It's recently featured Libby Riddles, the first woman to win the Iditarod dog sled race in 1985; Italy's Dorando Pietri, whose collapse near the finish line of the 1908 Olympic marathon made him a celebrity; and the 1978 decision that allowed women sports writers into the lockerrooms.
Grandchamp is in pre-production phase for a film on her life story, based on her book "A Fighter With Heart." She had hoped to move forward last summer but still plans to film in and around the Berkshires.
Tags: boxing, radio , womens sports,
