JOANNA MILLS likes to shock. So much so that she does it at will. Every time the 19-year-old meets someone new, jaw-dropping disbelief is virtually guaranteed. Mills, you see, simply doesn’t look like a woman wrestler. The preconceived perception that females grappling in the ring is more freak show than sport will be dispelled in Athens, where women’s wrestling is included in an Olympic Games for the first time.

Mills tackles the myth. “I’m well-placed to challenge it because I’m so girly and small,” she said. “I’m a total contrast to what people expect and if that shatters some illusions it’ll be good.”

She competes in Guelph, Ontario, tomorrow, in the Canada Cup, one of the sport’s largest events. Most of those qualified for Athens will be there, giving the British No 1 a taste of what she is going to miss. A shoulder injury sustained at the World Championships in New York 16 months ago ended her Olympic chances.

“I snapped this Greek woman down and felt a terrible agonising pain,” Mills said. “I looked down and my right shoulder was where my elbow should be. I ended up having surgery to have it pinned.” This, she accepts with a shrug of her 5ft 4in frame, is not a description likely to trigger queues of girls wanting to join the sport. “But I feel brilliant now,” she said. “The shoulder is not an issue. I’m fit and ready to move on.”

Fighting in the 51-kilos category, Mills must be at her best to progress in the Canada Cup against professional opponents from Greece and the United States. “Those countries are flying high,” she said. “But the real queens of wrestling are the Japanese. They’re also incredibly beautiful women. Not as muscular as most, but they whip everybody’s arse.”

Each round of competition has three two-minute bouts, with 30-second breaks in between. “It’s like gymnastics,” Mills said, “because it flows. Male wrestling can be aggressive, ‘I’m the big man here’ sort of attitude. But the women’s competitions are very loose and flamboyant. Each move is worth a certain number of points but you can win outright by getting a pin. It’s not done on a countdown. As long as your shoulder blades are down, it’s a pin.”

Winning by such an emphatic margin was not why Mills remembers her first competition so vividly. “It was in Bolton in 1998,” she said. “It was unfogettable because of what I was wearing. I hadn’t been wrestling for very long, so I didn’t have my own singlet to fight in. I had to wear a boy’s one. They go up the chest, whereas a female’s goes round the side. I looked rather ridiculous, but I won.”

Growing up with two brothers who wrestle meant that she was not the novice her opponents expected. Gordon, 14, and Stephen, 17, had been taking their sister to their training sessions at the YMCA in Manchester for several years. “I’m very close to my brothers but we love to fight each other,” Mills said. “I didn’t know there were competitions for women. Before I discovered such a thing existed it was just a case of going to the YMCA, flirting with the boys, having a little tussle and going home.”

Elizabeth and Iain Mills, who run a residential care home in Manchester, have no misgivings about her chosen sport. “They’re very liberal,” Mills said. “They’ve never said I can’t do something because it’s meant to be for boys. We criss-cross the threshold of what male and female roles are supposed to be in our house all the time.”

Mills opted for Manchester Met University, where she is reading Spanish and Cultural Studies, so that she could continue her training. “Dad’s very sporty and went to Germany once with the television programme, It’s A Knockout, so he had a grounding in the grappling sports,” she added. “He helps me with my strength work, but I’m also fortunate to be coached by Nikolai Korneveve. He’s a Russian who was given a contract by our governing body ahead of Athens.”

If dedication alone could win medals, Mills would already be a champion. “When I’m at university I get up at 5am to train for two hours,” she said. “My friends think it’s all a bit bizarre and they’ve come along to watch me, just to see what it’s all about. But I can see an opportunity at the end of this. I’ve got a drive to win and in four year’s time I believe I will be flourishing as a wrestler. I desperately want to be part of an Olympic Games, it would be the cherry on the cake. Nobody could misunderstand that.”