For Gina Lovoi, the International Olympic Committee's decision in August to include women's
boxing in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London was cause for celebration. "It's a huge, huge deal,"
she says. "It was a big struggle."

Lovoi, 39, is a former competitive boxer who works as a fitness trainer with an emphasis on boxing.
In her tiny Mission District studio last week, Lovoi put fellow trainer Lydia Linker through a series of
combination drills - jabs and straights, hooks and uppercuts - and progressed to a choreographed
scenario of bobbing, weaving and slipping.

A San Francisco native, Lovoi has a BFA from San Jose State and an MFA from the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago. She lives in San Francisco with her partner of three years, Julie Gunther.

I started out in kickboxing. I was living in New York, which was not the easiest experience in the
world for me. I think New York made me angry and frustrated, and I tend to gain weight when I'm
angry and frustrated.

When I moved back here after two years, I wanted to do something to release the tension, make it
constructive. In 1999, I started training at an amazing, now-defunct gym called Granelli's on Potrero
Hill. I competed as an amateur boxer before "Million Dollar Baby" came out and had a love/hate
relationship with the aspect of competition.
WHAT I DO: Gina Lovoi, boxing and fitness trainer

Boxing's been good to
female fitness coach
February 01, 2010|By Edward Guthmann, Special to The
Chronicle