Cecilia Brækhus was told women couldn’t enter boxing gyms. She still became an undisputed champion despite a ban on the sport

By George Ramsay, CNN(CNN) — Cecilia Brækhus embarked on her against-the-odds career in professional boxing almost two decades ago, and she’s hardly stopped fighting before or since. Professional boxing had been illegal since 1981, yet that didn’t stop Brækhus from falling in love with combat sports. “This was before girls could go to the Olympics (for boxing),” Brækhus explains about the start of her professional career. I said I was going to be a boxing star, a boxing champion and world champion. I did get a lot of sh*t for that, and that kind of drove me.”Unable to pursue a professional career in Norway, Brækhus instead moved to Germany.