Olympic gold medal winner Zou Shiming has vowed to fight on in spite of a serious eye condition which threatened to curtail his fighting career.

A few weeks ago, Shiming was revealed to be suffering from a serious eye condition after losing partial sight in his left eye during a flight from Beijing to Shanghai following the Laureus China Top Ten Sports Awards.

The former WBO flyweight world champion was told by doctors that he risked permanent sight loss if he returned to the ring after the December incident.

“I’m cooperating with doctors to get treatment, and I will never give up. If my body allows it, I think I can fight in the ring,” Xinhua quoted Zou as saying before adding that he had not decided to retire.

Zou, 36, has been undergoing treatment since the end of last year when the Zunyi-born fighter suddenly lost sight in his eye during the short-haul flight.

Doctors said he was suffering from a detached retina as well as optic nerve damage.

Zou’s wife Ran Yingying revealed that the two-time Olympic champion’s condition was caused by broken bones in and around his eye socket, in a recurrence of a similar injury he suffered in 2014.

Mainland media revealed in December that Zou was owed millions of dollars by his previous management, a claim his agents promptly denied saying it always put its fighter’s welfare first.

Wife’s leaked messages claiming Shiming was owed millions and forced to fight is denied by agents

He held the world title until July last year when he was sensationally beaten by Japan’s Sho Kimura, a massive underdog going into their fight. Ironically, everything went down after Shiming decided to become a free agent and he parted ways with Top Rank, career trainer Freddie Roach of the Wild Card, and even his promotional partners in China.