For her historic opportunity, Tina Rupprecht left her homeland far behind. In the training camp in Uzbekistan, the German professional boxer worked tirelessly for her dream of three world championship belts, and the language barrier and hardly any vegetarian food didn’t stop her. “This is a huge opportunity – and I will take advantage of it,” said Rupprecht before her fight against WBO and WBA world champion Eri Matdusa, 30, from Japan. On Saturday (10 p.m., sportschau.de as well as BR and SWR live stream) the WBC atomweight world champion has the chance to unify the world titles of three major associations – no German boxer has achieved this so far.
At 32 years old, the time seems ripe for Rupprecht to achieve another milestone. Because with a victory at the Olympic base in Heidelberg, the Augsburg native would also receive the belt from the renowned American boxing magazine The Ring. This is awarded by specialist journalists when, in their opinion, the two best boxers in the world compete against each other. Only Max Schmeling had achieved this as a German fighter in 1930.
The 1.53 meter tall Rupprecht, nicknamed “Tiny Tina”, moved to the lowest weight class of up to 46.3 kilograms in 2023 after losing her WBC minimum weight world title, which she had won in 2018. She now wants to write German boxing history there. The secondary school teacher recently completed a ten-day training camp near the Uzbek capital Tashkent. Coach Alexander Haan, a native of Kazakh, acted as a translator. “Only when I said that I was a vegetarian did they look at me with wide eyes,” Rupprecht told the Augsburg General. But that didn’t really bother her in her preparation. “I still have a big goal,” said Rupprecht. “And I definitely want to achieve that.”
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