PORT ELLIOT - A current national champion and a medal prospect at the London 2012 Olympics is now punching back to save her blossoming boxing career.

Elisha Buckley, of Port Elliot, is the current national champion in the 75 kilogram class after a win last December in Canberra.

In 2007 Elisha had a pacemaker installed to due to bradicardia, a condition of a low resting heart rate.

"Boxing Australia new that I had a pacemaker before entering in the championships and it is written clearly in the front of my international competition book which needs to get signed off by a GP before any boxer can have their first bout," Elisha explained

"Boxing Australia still let me enter the championships."

Disaster for Elisha happened two days before Christmas last year when she received the bad news.

"I received an email from the chief medical officer of the AIBA (International Boxing Association) saying that due to my pacemaker, I was banned from any future competition for my own safety," Elisha said.

"Obviously I was devastated and pleaded to them that this should be my own choice with the consequences, if any, on my own shoulders.

Elisha explained that when she first went to get her international competition book signed off, she had to get a letter from her cardiologist giving her the all clear to step into the ring.

"They were satisfied with this."

Elisha said that bradicardia is a non-life threatening condition.

"I got the pacemaker for the bradicardia, which is a low resting heart rate around 38 beats per minute (bpm),"

"It was purely put in to stop me from passing out often, as my heart rate used to get so slow that it would cause my blood pressure to drop resulting in me blacking out for 30 seconds or so.

"This started to happen more and more often so the cardiologist suggested a pacemaker to keep my heart rate above 60 bpm.

"The pacemaker is simply offering a better quality of life."