Last night at the FLP event in Westerburg (Germany), GBU junior flyweight champion Nadja Loritz and Eleonora Mistal, who was making her debut, went six rounds, with Loritz taking the decision. “Nadja would rather have fought 8 or 10 rounds,“ commented husband and trainer Detlef Loritz, “in which case she might have been able to win inside the distance, but a late addition to the program required the limiting of her bout to six.” Despite suffering a fair degree of punishment in the fifth and sixth rounds, when Loritz began belabouring her about the head, Mistal showed considerable pluck, and earned the respect of the thousand odd fans in the hall by sticking it out to the end.

Whilst a points win may seem a poor result prima facie for a world champion against a woman making her debut, the fact that Loritz is also battling multiple sclerosis casts it in an altogether more heroic light. Though undiagnosed at the time, Loritz was already exhibiting the symptoms of the disease when she suffered her only loss in 2003; after two years out of the sport, fighting depression and undergoing treatment, she resumed her boxing career in February 2005 when doctors gave her the green light.

Her comeback fight was against Elena Miftode of Romania, whom she had KOd three years earlier in Kandel. “The competition did me good,” remembers Nadja. “For me, it was a great joy to climb back into the ring once more and measure myself in a real duel. I actually felt better in this fight than in the two prior to my diagnosis. I tried to take it easy and not tense up in the early rounds, but I stepped up the pressure in the third and went to work downstairs. I could tell from Elena’s reaction to the first hard body shots that the fight wouldn’t go the distance. Miftode had nothing to lose and everything to win, but I managed nonetheless to break her will.” (The Romanian retired after the 5^th round).

Loritz wants nothing more than to avenge her only defeat, against Halmich, for whom she has nothing but respect, but against whom she feels she let herself down badly because she didn’t realize at the time that she was ill and needed treatment. “Nadja’s going to carry on boxing for as long as Regina Halmich is active,” says Detlef Loritz. “She’s still hoping that Regina will grant her a rematch.”

“The gods are well pleased when they see great men contending with adversity.” Robert Burton (1577-1640)