Olympic boxing champion Nicola Adams insists she has little chance of winning the BBC Sports Personality vote on Sunday but hopes another female role model such as Jessica Ennis or Katherine Grainger takes the award.

Former Bradford College student Adams, 30, became the world’s first ever women’s Olympic boxing champion when she triumphed in the flyweight category at the London Games, and since then she has become a household name.

From appearances on TV show ‘8 Out of 10 Cats’, to meetings with the Queen and Duchess of Cambridge, life for Leeds-based Adams has changed completely.

Even so, she insists she was surprised to make the 12-name shortlist for the BBC award, that she will go for gold again in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and that her biggest ambition now is to take an action role in a future James Bond film.

Adams said: “I couldn’t believe I was up for nomination. I’m going to to the show and have some fun and I know my chances are quite slim.

“I hope Jessica Ennis or Katherine Grainger win. I trained alongside Jess and I saw how hard she worked, while Katharine had won so many silvers and then finally won a gold.”

Ennis won the heptathlon gold at the Olympics while Grainger won the double sculls, after finishing runner-up in three previous Games.

Adams has found herself thrust in the position of being a role model - she is now president of the charity Us Girls, which aims to get girls aged from 16 to 24 back into sport - and wants British women’s contribution to the Olympics to be recognised.

She added: “It took quite a while to sink in, but people started telling me that I had made history and was a role model so I am now embracing that and I view it as a responsibility.

“I think we showed in London how important women’s sport is in this country.”

As for the future, Adams will resist any thoughts of turning professional.

“My goals are straightforward: to go to the European Championships, and then the worlds, and hopefully get another first after three silvers there, and then defend my title at Rio.”

Her other ambition is on the silver screen, and she harbours hopes of being given an acting role in an action film.

“I would love an action part in a James Bond film,” she confessed. “I went to see Skyfall and thought it was fantastic.

“All these things have happened to me since winning the Olympics - who would have thought I would be handing out the prizes at the MOBO awards - so I’ve learned to realise that everything is possible.”

Adams may not emerge as the BBC winner on Sunday - but she has few rivals in terms of personality.