Fighting in a foreign country, with posters of your opponents adorning the streets and a room full of fans with little intention of supporting you might be enough to intimidate some boxers.

But Shannon Courtenay is not an easily-intimidated boxer. The rising star from Abbots Langley, already named England’s Southern Area title winner in September, has spent time training at Floyd Mayweather’s gym in Las Vegas and now has wrapped up 2016 with an unusual, if welcome, final fight of the year in Sweden.

Having been invited to the northern European nation last weekend alongside a collection of other British boxers, who were taking part in a King Of The Ring event, she saw off Sweden number one Sophia Smith in front of an adoring home crowd, and while on national television.

It seems all in a day’s work if you ask the 23-year-old about her victory, although even she admits the odds were against her in Scandinavia.

“My team was going out there to do the King in the Ring competition, and then they asked if I wanted to come too,” she said.

“It was a hard fight. I knew it would be quite tough; it was on national television, and I knew I had to win convincingly because with the home crowd, if I didn’t do that they would give her the victory.

“We are two very different types of fighter, and after the match she said I was too strong for her, which was nice.

“Because she was the national number one I knew I would be up against it, and when they started singing their anthem I just felt I had to go and get the win, it inspired me.

“I’ve fought on TV in England before, but it’s weird when you are going somewhere out of your comfort zone and every factor is against you. 

“They introduced her as the pride of Sweden, and I was like ‘here we go’.

“There were posters of her around the town and I knew if I ever took my foot off the gas, they would exploit it.”

Courtenay agreed the victory had ended her year on a particularly high note, in one of the most challenging fights of her career.

“It’s nice being on the way up, and it puts me up there,” she said. “It was a nice way to end the year, as I now won’t be fighting until January, when I have to retain my area belt for the first time. 

“You have to win it three times before you can keep it, so this will get me most of the way there.

“It’s been a pretty good year all in all, and I have had a good season. Winning the title and beating the international number one from Sweden definitely sit as the highlights.”

Courtenay is not resting on her laurels, however, and has even bigger plans for 2017, still only three years since she first set foot in the ring.

“I’m excited for next year,” she said. “It’s going to be different and I want to fight for the England title maybe, and I would like to win a first England cap as well.

“I feel like I deserve it now, and I don’t mean that in an arrogant way. It certainly will have helped, this fight, 100 per cent it will have been noticed.

“We are waiting to hear who will be up in January and I want to see who it is that comes up. 

"There’s a few people who I would like to fight for the area title again.”