Greentree: Boxing’s accidental People’s champion

Gold medal winning boxer Emma-Sue Greentree is proving to be a wicked combination of energy, skill, and courage as she fights to qualify for next year’s Glasgow Commonwealth Games and the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, but she’s scrapping just as hard outside of the ring to help improve the quality of life for an army of people.

The 26-year-old from the NSW Central Coast is ranked the world’s No.3 amateur fighter in the 75kg weight division after following up on her brilliant bronze medal performance at this years world championships in England with a glittering gold at the recent World Boxing Cup Finals in India.

However, this New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) scholarship holder is also engaged in noble battles on behalf of two communities of vulnerable people, and they could be considered as being of even greater importance than her lioness-hearted showings against the world’s best boxers.

Greentree is a fierce advocate for people with diabetes – especially those with the Type 1 she battles – to not allow the chronic autoimmune condition become a roadblock to fulfilling their dreams. On top of that, she’s employed as a Special and Inclusive Education Teacher’s Aide for the NSW Department of Education where she’s a much-loved source of support – and inspiration – to the group of incredible students she cares for.

This pugilist with a big heart, and who, at nine-years-of-age, suffered her first bout of diabetes just hours after her sister Belinda Wright (nee Barnes) received the bronze medal for softball at the Beijing Olympics, remembers vividly how the diagnosis rocked her mother.

“Seeing my mum cry for the first time,” was Greentree’s recollection from that time. “She’s a pretty tough egg, so I didn’t expect her to cry. I looked at her and I just said, ‘don’t worry about it mum, we’ve got this’. That showed I wasn’t going to let it affect me and she had nothing to worry about.

“The biggest thing when I speak to other ‘Type 1’s’ is [how I feel when I realise] they need to see themselves as not being [able to] achieve something. That’s heart breaking. Having diabetes means you just need to take a little bit of extra care, while you also need to try to understand it as best you can.”

Greentree is especially proud of the strong connection she’s established with the children she cares for in her role as a Special and Inclusive Education Teacher’s Aide.

“The kids just need the support . . . the belief . . .  from somebody that can help them get through things if they need it,” she said. “Some of the kids I work with only feel safe when they’re at school. They just want someone to be there for them.

“All kids need support. They need to know they’re capable of anything; letting them know they can create goals and achieve goals is a huge thing. I’ve come across students who don’t understand they can do anything and that’s really heart breaking.”

While Greentree has received numerous plaudits for her successes throughout 2025 – including a personally signed congratulatory letter that Premier Chris Minns and Sports Minister Steve Kamper MP sent to each of NSWIS’s 52 world championship medallists and presented to her by NSWIS’s Acting CEO, Adam Berry – she was genuinely humbled by the reaction from her students.

“A lot of them have told me they’re proud of me, and they congratulate me,” she revealed. “It also gives them another thing to talk about and they say, ‘I know someone famous’ – not that I’m famous [laughs]. They love the idea I’m kicking my own goals, and that helps them create theirs.”

Another important by-product from her 2025 campaign is the self-belief Greentree now possesses. For a fighter who has long possessed the courage and skill to be a success, tapping into this newly found reservoir of self-belief promises to be a great ally in her quest to represent Australia as an Olympian and Commonwealth Games representative.

“Getting that gold medal in India proved I’ve been working hard, and that I do deserve to be at the top,” she said. “[The medals and self-belief are] going to push me to get better and better.”

Greentree has come a long way since her first bout as a 17-year-old with only 12 weeks of training under her belt. While she defeated Ismaella Moyuku in a 2016 three-rounder in Brisbane, her memories of that debut under the bright lights are scant.

“I don’t think I breathed at any time during that whole fight,” the veteran of 62 bouts says with a grin. “And then, when I looked in the mirror after the fight, I had a black eye! There wasn’t much technique; wasn’t much of anything really. But when I look at that video sometimes – and it’s terrible; awful to watch – it shows how much I’ve improved since then.”

While nick names such as ‘The Greatest,’ ‘Iron Mike,’ ‘the Green Machine,’ ‘Glamour With Hammer’ and ‘The Brown Bomber,’ are synonymous with boxing, Greentree jokes she doesn’t have a fight name yet because Emma-Sue Greentree rolls off the ring announcer’s tongue so easily.

However, after hearing her story, and how she’s inspiring people to live their best life by caring about them and leading by example, Greentree ought to consider embracing this as her ring name . . .

‘People’s Champion.’

FIGHTING WORDS

• Greentree also won a bronze medal at the 2023 world championships
• She defeated Italy’s Melissa Gemini for the World Cup Boxing Final’s gold medal in Greater Noida, India.
• Among her many athletics achievements was winning the NSW under-14 high jump title after a ‘jump off’
• Greentree got her driver’s license at 17 to ensure she could get to training under her own steam
• She has so far fought in the USA, England, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, Poland, India, Bulgaria and Hungary
• Greentree’s ‘handle’ on Instagram in Type1boxer – a reference to her diabetes
• Having multiple world champion Claressa Shields reply to one of her social media stories left her feeling starstruck
• She tells supporters that diabetes is not something to be taken lightly, and she thanks her team – which includes NSWIS practitioners Krystal Sharp (physiotherapy),  Billy Macklin (S&C) and Holly Edstein (nutrition) for helping to manage it whilst being an elite athlete
• Greentree trains at 5am, works, and trains again at 5pm. She gets in as many steps as possible during a day, including a walk after dinner.
• Greentree credits boxing for giving her life structure, discipline, and excitement.

Daniel Lane, NSWIS