The 29-year-old flyweight (pictured above) from Leeds claimed a stunning 16-7 win over World Champion Ren Cancan of China to put her name in the record books.

The victory comes with figures from Sport England showing that the number of women participating in boxing, including non-contact and competitive, has risen steadily over the last four years with 19,600 females currently participating in the sport at least once a week.

The figures also show that 30,100 women participate in boxing once every four weeks, while there are 1,849 female amateur boxing club members in England.

Former Sports Minister Richard Caborn, the chairman of Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABAE), has claimed that following the success of the first ever women's Olympic boxing tournament and the success of Adams, the participation figures in the country will only increase.

Nicola Adams (left) in action against Ren Cancan of China prior to winning the women's flyweight London 2012 gold medal 

"Participation in boxing, by both males and females, has been on the rise for some time, but I believe that over the next 12 months we will witness the 'Adams effect' among young women who will be inspired to try the sport after watching the Olympic boxing on TV and seeing Nicola win a gold medal in such fantastic style," said Caborn.

"The Olympics has provided a shop window for the sport and many people that have never previously seen women's boxing or heard of the Team GB athletes have now seen for themselves what a fantastic sport it is and what brilliant role models we have in Nicola and the other members of the team, Natasha Jonas and Savannah Marshall, who is the current world champion at middleweight."

Mark Abberley, the chief executive of the ABAE, said that the organisation will continue to promote the sport at grassroots level to help keep people, particularly young people, fit and healthy.

"At the ABAE, which is responsible for grassroots boxing in the England, we have developed a series of new products and initiatives to drive participation over the next four years and many of these are targeted at young women," said Abberley.

Nicola Adams (left), Savannah Marshall (centre) and Natasha Jonas are inspiring young British women to take up boxing, say the ABAE

"These include new fitness programmes, like our 'ABA Box' product and also a series of initiatives with schools to develop new non-contact variants of the sport.

"Non-contact boxing will also be included in the Youth Sport Trust School Games for the first time so will give more young people the opportunity to try the sport and help to address issues like inactivity and obesity among young people.

"If some of the new people that try the sport want to move on to competitive boxing and emulate Nicola then that is brilliant.

"Equally, if they do not want to compete and want to do boxing for fitness then that will be a great legacy from the games and will help to address a range of issues such as inactivity in young people and childhood obesity.

"I am confident that through this work and the continued outstanding work of the clubs and volunteers that are so critical to the success of amateur boxing that we will be able to benefit from the great performances of our Olympic and help to inspire a new generation of people to come to the sport."

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