Jade Jones said she kept getting stopped by police in the Jaguar she was given after winning her first Olympic gold, a car she said officers did not believe belonged to her. The 2X taekwondo Olympic champion is back in action tonight, returning to the ring against Federikita at the AO Arena in Manchester, England, on a stacked Misfits Boxing card.
Jones said she was 19 when the call came offering her a free Jaguar after she came home from her breakthrough win on a bus. Jaguar had started sponsoring her before her first Olympics in London in 2012, and after the gold it handed her the car that became part prize, part public nuisance. “I was just 19. I remember coming back after the win on a bus, and I got a phone call, saying, ‘Do you want a free Jaguar’? I was like, ‘Yeah, this is sick’. It was amazing. I’d always get stopped by the police because they didn’t believe it was mine. It was a big old man’s car. Sometimes, I used to drive around in my pajamas,” she said.
The story lands now because Jones is trying to make the next stage of her sporting life look just as natural as the last one. Known for her taekwondo medals, she has been turning heads in boxing and is appearing on a Misfits show headlined by Tommy Fury vs Eddie Hall. The car anecdote fits that larger shift: a reminder that her Olympic fame once followed her into ordinary life, even on the road.
But the harder edge of the tale is that the car meant to celebrate her triumph also brought suspicion. Jones said police stopped her because they did not believe the Jaguar was hers, despite the fact that it was tied to her sponsorship and Olympic success. That contradiction gives the moment its bite. The prize was real, the attention was real, and so was the suspicion that came with it.
Now the focus moves back to the ring, where Jones said she expects another stoppage and promised a big performance against Federikita. What is not yet known is whether her boxing run will match the swagger of the old stories she is now telling, or whether this night in Manchester becomes another line in a career that has already moved well beyond taekwondo.
