Queen Underwood hasn’t graced the front page of CDNews since the Cappy’s-based Queen Team training team called it quits in July citing a lack of funds. But she has not been simply sitting on the couch eating potato chips. The Garfield High grad has been training and fighting, working hard to stay on track to be the first ever women’s boxing Olympic Gold Medalist this summer.
ON AUGUST 13, 2009, QUEEN UNDERWOOD was working as a sprinkler fitter in Seattle when she got the news that women’s boxing would be a medal sport at the 2012 Olympics. She called everyone in her cellphone, and work went out the window. Underwood has been training as an amateur fighter for 10 years, and this summer the 27-year-old Seattle native is the odds-on favorite to bring home gold for the U.S. in the 132-pound weight class. First she’ll have to fight through the Olympic trials in Spokane this February, but no one, including Underwood, is worried about that. This is, after all, a fighter whose motto is “Can’t stop, won’t stop.”