Bear Grylls will be pushing boxing champion and double Olympic gold medalist Nicola Adams to her limits in Bear & Nicola Adams’ Wild Adventure.
Airing Friday, 4 June at 9:30PM on ITV, boxing superstar Nicola is seen facing the gruelling and harsh terrain of Dartmoor in a once in a lifetime experience and test her survival instincts.
Nicola will join Bear to battle the wild and push her physical and mental limits. Nicola will also learn the key basic survival skills necessary to survive in remote terrain like Dartmoor.
In one challenge, Nicola has to abseil down a 150-foot cliff in windy weather before Bear shows Nicola how to cook an egg just by using hand sanitizer and a match.
In addition to the physical challenge of the adventures, Bear will also have the chance to get to know his companion by speaking to her about her life, achievements, key life moments, as well as her hopes for the future.
In the special, Nicola is seen opening up about her tough and difficult childhood.
She shares with Bear: “I’ve always been a person that always wants to fight for what’s right. At the time when I was coming up as a boxer and my mum didn’t have much money so me and my brother didn’t grow up with you know the latest gear.
“It was just having that determination and that fight in me of I have to win this because I’m fighting for my family, I’m fighting for my future, I’m fighting for so much more than other people might be.
“I used to sit and I used to think ‘why were the Russians and the Cubans so good at boxing why were they always taking all the medals’ and it was because they were fighting for so much more than just winning a medal. I was fighting to give my mum a better place to live, I was able to buy my mum a house.”
Nicola also speaks about being “super nervous” about coming out to her mum.
She says: “I’d been going over it in my head for weeks like what I was going to say, asking my friends what I should say, what should the approach be, should I wait until she is watching her TV Soaps or should I wait after the Soaps, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what her reaction was going to be, whether she was going to be mad, I just had no idea how she was going to respond.
“I remember one day just getting the courage to go and tell her, I think I was about thirteen fourteen at the time, she was in the kitchen I just went up to her and I was like ‘look mum’ I was so nervous and I was just like ‘I’m gay’ and she was like ‘oh it’s alright just put the kettle on’ and I was like what?”
Bear said: “Nicola has had such an incredible journey. She’s overcome so many huge obstacles in her upbringing, including the abuse she had as a child at home from her father. Nicola started boxing because her mum needed a babysitter and so she was dropped off at the boxing gym. From the beginning she was the only boxing girl in the gym and at her school.
“To then go on and defy so many of the odds to win Olympic Gold – not to mention then to do it again – is so remarkable.”
Bear & Nicola Adams’ Wild Adventure, Friday 4 June at 9:30PM on ITV.
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