Дэлхийн аварга Кэролайн Дюбуа дасгалжуулагч болон гэр бүлийн харилцаагаа өөрчилсөндөө харамсахгүй байна

Caroline Dubois may be living in Los Angeles, but do not speak to her about Californian glitz.

“I don’t know if it’s just me or how my mindset is when it comes to camp, but I am an hour away from the beach and I’ve been once for a training day,” says the British world champion lightweight, speaking via a video call.

“I’m about a half-hour away from Beverly Hills as well, but I’ve not seen that yet. I’ve been here six weeks and it is train, home to rest, back to the gym to train, home to rest again. I watch films, some boxing, read. That’s as exciting as it gets.”

Dubois has good reason to be focused. On Saturday, she defends her WBC and WBO titles against American Amelia Moore on Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions (MVP) card in Birmingham, England — her first fight since a surprise split from her long-time coach Shane McGuigan, who guided her from amateur standout to becoming a unified world champion with 13 wins and one draw. She is now trained byAmerican Manny Robles, a switch that caused ripples of shock throughout women’s boxing.

Why do it?

“I’m not going to get into the reasons too much,” Dubois says. “I think the more important thing is that, one, the training has been so different. Sparring has been really high level. And everything that I’ve been wanting and I’ve been looking for, you know, I’ve been ticking those boxes.

“People have been saying, ‘Usually people leave coaches after they’ve lost or after something bad happened.’ And I just think, ‘You know, I ain’t going to wait for that.’ If I feel like I need something, I’m going to go out there and get it. I don’t need to wait to mess up to make a decision that is already sitting in my head.

“The most important thing is to continue to develop, not just as an athlete, but as a person. I feel like I’m doing that, I’m very happy.”

Dubois’ split with McGuigan was all the more surprising given he had been a constant in her life during a period of personal turbulence. In 2024, Caroline, one of her brothers and one of her sisters (she comes from a family of 11 children) effectively split from the rest of their family after a breakdown in relations with their father, Stan (who also goes by the name Dave).

Another of Dubois’ brothers, Daniel, is a heavyweight world champion in his own right, having also been schooled under Stan’s strict, boxing-focused lifestyle which Caroline has previously called “overbearing”. Daniel was also coached by McGuigan at the time, but he moved from the gym under his father’s instruction and Caroline stayed put. The siblings are not on speaking terms.

It feels like a lot for anyone to cope with, let alone a fighter in her early 20s trying to make her way in a notoriously unforgiving profession. Yet Dubois exudes positivity and self-belief, perhaps not surprisingly given this is the same fighter who, as a nine-year-old, tucked her hair into a cap and pretended to be a boy called ‘Colin’ so she could train at a males-only gym in London.

“The worst position to be in at the end of your life is if you’ve got a million regrets,” she says. “You don’t want to be like, ‘The reason why I’m not happy or satisfied with my career is because of this person or that person’.

“With my family situation, obviously it’s very personal and very complicated, but I look at the decision and, again, no regrets, a hundred per cent accountability.

Caroline Dubois with her brother Daniel in 2019 (James Chance/Getty Images)

“To live the life you want to live, you do have to make sacrifices. And these are some of the sacrifices that I make and not just myself, but my brother and my sister as well. And I’m just proud of our journey together and what we’ve achieved. And it is only just the start.”

Dubois has had no shortage of role models as she seeks to carve her own path in boxing.One of them is Claressa Shields, the multi-weight U.S. world champion who Dubois believes shows young women they can speak up and be confident in themselves.

Shields, 31, came from humble beginnings in Flint, Michigan, to win back-to-back Olympic golds and then world professional titles in five different weight classes. She’s outspoken, brash and labels herself as ‘GWOAT’ – the Greatest Woman of All Time.

Dubois watched Shields’ last fight from her training base in L.A. as she beat Kaye Scott in front of a packed State Farm Arena in Atlanta. Shields is a big fan of Dubois and has attended her fights before.

“Claressa Shields has been one of my biggest inspirations for a very long time and I’ll always be vocal about that,” said Dubois. “What she’s done, where she’s come from, especially, that has inspired me on another level.

“I’m just so proud of her. I was watching the card, of course, and seeing the arena slowly fill up, seeing the crowd just get time for a walkout, her energy… for a woman to do that, an American woman, a woman of colour, I’m just in awe. She’s a legend and has always been very supportive of me. She messages me, checks on how I’m doing.

“She gives me good advice to promote yourself. People are so afraid in the UK to be a little bit outspoken, to come off confident. They’re very afraid of that.

“When you see someone like Claressa, who has been so successful, it lets you know that you can be confident. You can talk your s—. If you believe it, you can say it.Proclaim it before it happens. Speak it into existence. Claressa is the number one for that.”

Caroline Dubois shows off her world title belts with Claressa Shields (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)

Shields is 31, so may not be going anywhere anytime soon, but another superstar is leaving the firmament in the form of Katie Taylor. The Irish fighter is retiring following her September 5 bout against France’s Flora Pili in front of 82,000 fans in Dublin’s Croke Park.

There will be a void left by Taylor, while Puerto Rican Amanda Serrano, who had three epic bouts with Taylor, is also at the end of her career after her 50th victory recently.

Dubois, who features on the undercard of American Mikaela Mayer against England’s Chantelle Cameron in a WBO and WBC super-welterweight bout this weekend, feels the women’s sport needs more than one star to carry it forward.

“The aim is to become undisputed, to be involved in the biggest fights, the biggest nights, the biggest moments possible in women’s boxing,” she said. “I want to be a face, a trendsetter and pushing it.

“But I feel like there can be multiple faces. There doesn’t need to be one unanimous face. It’s a terrible thing when there is, because it means that the sport is dead.

“Look at the men’s sport —there’s loads of different stars. Women’s boxing needs to be that. I want to be a part of it.”