Italian boxer Romina Marenda attends a training session at the Military Olympic Center in Rome, Oct 6, 2011. Lightweight Marenda will be one of Italy's biggest hopes when women's boxing makes its debut at the London Olympics this year, as long as she manages to qualify at the world championships in China in May. [Photo/Agencies]

ROME - Corporal Romina Marenda of the Italian army never expects to go into combat, apart from meeting another woman in the ring.

Lightweight Marenda will be one of Italy's biggest hopes when women's boxing makes its debut at the London Olympics this year, as long as she manages to qualify at the world championships in China in May.

"That's the big dream," she told Reuters as she worked out intensively with six other Italian women boxers, including team captain Valeria Calabrese at an army sports centre on the edge of Rome. Calabrese, probably Italy's best medal prospect, is not in the army but uses its facilities.

Marenda, 27, started boxing originally as a way to lose weight when she was working in an art museum in her home town of Vicenza in northern Italy.

But the way she trains with a frown of concentration in the winter sunshine on the track and then works up a sweat sparring and snapping punches into bags in the gym reveals how passionate she is about her sport and getting to the Olympics.

"My life really changed after this choice," she said, describing how she started boxing full time after joining the army in 2009, and emphasising she is in the services only because of the sport.

Italian boxer Romina Marenda attends a training session at the Military Olympic Center in Rome, Oct 6, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Asked if she expected to go to war, she replied with a laugh, "I hope not! I hope they call the others first."

"I am not a real soldier. I am in the military but I am a military boxer," said Marenda, who entered the army on a special intake for athletes. "My only job is to be a boxer."

Marenda, who at 1.70 meters is taller than the other Italian boxers but a lot shorter than some of her bulky international opponents, speaks good English, helped by the presence of American neighbors in Vicenza from the nearby US air base.

She rejects the notion that boxing is unfeminine.

"I don't think there are sports for boys or sports for girls...like I don't think there is a dance for a boy or a dance for a girl. We are just athletes. We are just boxers or just dancers. If you like to do something and if you can do it, it means it is not just for boys or just for girls."

Italian boxer Romina Marenda (R) punches during a training session at the Military Olympic Center in Rome, Oct 6, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]