Cecilia Brækhus was told women couldn’t enter boxing gyms. She still became an undisputed champion despite a ban on the sport

Photo illustration by Jason Lancaster/CNN/Getty Images

Cecilia Brækhus embarked on her against-the-odds career in professional boxing almost two decades ago, and she’s hardly stopped fighting before or since.

Along the way, her opponents have been many and varied, from world champions in the ring to a professional boxing ban in her native country and those who believed that women had no place in the sport at all.

Now, at the age of 43, Brækhus is ready to hang up her gloves, her far-reaching legacy already etched into boxing’s history books as the first-ever undisputed women’s world champion.

But to have experienced such success during your career only makes it harder to say goodbye. Ahead of her final fight against Slovenian Ema Kozin on Saturday, Brækhus has been coming to terms wi