CONNIE Ramsay is literally desperate for a fight. The 29-year-old will compete in the Scottish Boxing Elite Championships preliminary rounds in Motherwell this weekend and, she admits, it is about time she got back into the competitive environment. So strong is her desire to feel the heat of competition, Ramsay will go into the Elite Championships with only two fights under her belt while the majority of her competitors will have had a considerably greater number.

The reason for her inexperience is simple: until two years ago, she was a judo player. Growing up in Tain in the Scottish Highlands, Ramsay aspired to make it to the very top and indeed, she got there.

Ramsay was a stalwart of the Scottish judo team, her greatest achievement coming at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014 where she won a bronze medal. However, in the aftermath, she was forced to make a decision: would she go for the Rio Olympics or choose to take a different path in life?

She admitted to herself that Rio would probably be out of her reach and with judo omitted from the programme for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, decided to call time on her career in the sport. She became a judo coach as well as a mentor for the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust but there was still a need for a competitive outlet which is where boxing came in.

Ramsay decided to step into a boxing ring and took to it immediately. Her first fight was at a club show before she entered the 2016 Boxing Scotland Novice Championships last October. However, she hit an obstacle. After winning her first fight, she was then disqualified because, due to her judo experience, she could not be regarded as a beginner.

Struggling to understand the decision, Ramsay was determined it would take more than this setback to deter her. The Edinburgh-based fighter continued to put in the hours at the gym, and after realising that there were no fighters in her weight class of 60kgs in the intermediate category, she decided to make the jump to elite.

Ramsay is undaunted, though, about what faces her this weekend and, if she progresses to the latter stages, what lies in wait. “I’m so excited – I really can’t wait to get going,” she says.

“It feels like it’s been a very long time to not compete and that’s been a bit frustrating. I’m not feeling any pressure at all this weekend which is nice and so I’m just looking forward to seeing if all of the hard work that I’ve done in the gym will have paid off. Because as everyone knows, training and competition are very different.”

After spending the best part of two decades as a judoka, learning an entirely new sport was no easy feat. But while there are new skills like punching that had to be learnt, there are a number of qualities that Ramsay has been able to transfer from her judo career.

“One of the main advantages is that I’m able to pick things up quickly,” she says. “I’m used to being coached at a high level so I know exactly what I need to do to improve.

“And I’m able to reflect on things look at what went well and what went badly and take that into my next session. But people try to make comparisons between boxing and judo because they’re both combat sports but they’re not the same at all.”

Ramsay has another trump card: she is able to tap into the boxing knowledge of a former world champion. Alex Arthur was British, European, Commonwealth and World champion in the 2000s and Ramsay has been doing weekly sessions with him as she strives to improve. He is, she admits, not a bad resource: “Alex was my pal before I began boxing so that’s why I began doing stuff with him,” she says.

“If there’s any advice that I need or if I want to speak to him about anything then he’s always there. It’s really good to have someone who’s been there, done it and bought the t-shirt to speak to. And because I know him well, I think I know how to get the best out of him so I can use his knowledge as much as possible.”

Ramsay admits that she is still unsure how far she can go in boxing. With so little experience in a competitive environment, she remains largely untested. However, if things go well, the prospect of making Team Scotland for the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast next April is not out of the question. “I think it is a realistic target,” she says.

“But unfortunately I’ve not been able to get as far as I would have hoped to in boxing yet because I’ve not competed much. And so I think that’s why the Scottish Championships this weekend are a big deal because although I’ve got no pressure on me, it is an opportunity to show people what I can do.”