Between the ropes: Female boxer puts her heart into ring

Between the ropes: Female boxer puts her heart into ring
By Julie Randle
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 7:18 AM CST

Five years ago, Jamie O'Hare decided to fight back and she's been fighting ever since.

O'Hare, a professional boxer, came to the sweet science after she was stalked as a college student by a man who lived in a half-way house near her Springfield, Mo., apartment complex.

The man used to wait outside her apartment, watch her while she sunbathed at the apartment pool and tried to force flowers on her.After he physically harassed her, she decided she had had enough. She enrolled in a self-defense class at a karate studio.

"It opened me up to self-defense that became my life," said O'Hare, a 25-year-old North County resident. "I became confident and stronger and it gave me a new way to define myself. I didn't feel like a victim."

Self-defense led to kickboxing and then amateur boxing. Twenty amateur bouts and one professional bout later, she will take on Carrine Hamlett from Georgia in a match of welterweights March 8 at the Renaissance St. Louis Grand & Suites Hotel, 800 Washington Ave. O'Hare is one of 24 competitors fighting in the Xtreme Fight Party, an event that will feature boxing and mixed martial arts --- a full contact sports that combines various fighting styles including wrestling, kickboxing and boxing.
full story here:
http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2008/02/27/top_story/sj2tn20080226-0227ssj-boxer00.ii1.txt





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