Embodiment of Girl Power

[caption id="attachment_39795" align="alignright" width="175" caption="Fiona Power in training at the Amalgamated Boys' Club. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 0874308)"]

By day the 31-year-old former Blanchelande schoolgirl is a commercial pilot - a line of work that is certainly male-dominated.

But it is in sport where Power really upsets the applecart.

She is a member of the newly-formed Guernsey women's rugby team and, more significantly, she cracked one of the last bastions of masculinity, when she became the island's first competitive boxer at the weekend.

Explaining why she took up the hardest sport around she said: 'I just really wanted to do something on my own - something that is a full contact sport.

'I have always enjoyed the more "adrenaline" sports like rugby and motorcycling.'

But women's boxing has met a lot of opposition, especially from the sport's old guard.

Some seem to think that the only time women should be allowed through the ropes is when wearing high heels and bikinis and carrying ring cards.

It was not until April this year that the island's only boxing club, the Amalgamated Boys' Club, opened its doors to allow females in to train and fight.