Paving the Way, Only to Watch From the Sidelines

I feel as though this blog needs to be written for my own sanity mostly...

This weekend marks the first time ever in history that women will be boxing in the Olympics. I should be really happy about this, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn't feeling particularly bitter and quite emotional. I am so proud of all of those women, but very few of them have been around since the beginning.

When I first started boxing there were two of us in my town. A girl by the name of Mandy Lapointe, who's interests were mostly to become a professional boxer; and me, who's dreams were to make waves, get fights and someday, maybe just someday, be in the Olympics. (which wasn't even a conceived thought in the minds of the decision makers.)

I started boxing ironically enough, on boxing day 1997. I had put on the gloves many times before that fighting with my dad in our living room, but it was the first time I seriously stepped foot in the gym to train. It was love at first smell. It was as if it was already engrained in me and the boxing gym was where I was suppose to be. My parents had always been really supportive of our extra-curricular activities (in fact, maybe too much) but once I started boxing, all but one other activity fell away. I was at the gym Monday to Friday, 2 hours a day - the only girl in a boxing gym filled with boys and men. I was so serious about what I was doing and it gave me a confidence that I could have never acquired without that sport.

Because there were no other girls, I got in the ring with any guy that was willing to spar. I learned so much from all them. I developed a strength I feel most women don't possess. I needed thick skin for the days I was told I didn't belong, or that they weren't willing to hit a girl; I developed the strength to take a good punch from those that were willing, and I learned how to push through the pain - the pain from a blow or the pain of my muscles and my mind saying they'd had enough. Boxing became my world, and before long I wanted to be competitive. This proved to be a major challenge, as I was very light, and the girls in other provinces that were boxing were much heavier, or older; and, there weren't really any girls to fight. I make no exagerration when I say that for 5 years I went on road trips every two weeks, going through the motions of making weight and getting mentally prepared in hopes that a girl would be available to fight even when the coaches said on the phone there were no girls ready. I was willing to take exhibiton matches, matches with boys (which no matter how much I begged was never allowed) or matches a weight up or down. I just wanted to fight so badly.

As I got more serious about my goals, the way I trained also became very serious.  A typical day for me was to be up at 5:30am go for my morning run, get ready for school, go to classes, do homework at lunch, go home from school, have some food, put on my running gear and run the 12km to the boxing gym, followed by 2 1/2 hours of rigorous skipping, bag drills, handpads and sparring. I would do this Monday to Friday and on Saturday I would run anywhere between 20 and 25km's. I was constantly on a diet, counting calories, eating boiled chicken, rice and salad, getting in the sauna covered in Albaline and spitting into a bucket. And finally one awesome day in May, 5 years after I first stepped foot into the gym, I had my first fight. The girl I was set to fight, was a weight class up, had a record of 5 wins, all by first-round knockout and moved like a horse in the ring. I remember walking to the ring and feeling like I was going to puke, but when I looked over at my dad, he looked so much more nervous than me, and that somehow settled my nerves. I got in the ring, committed to following the start-up routine I had practised over and over again in the gym and watched this girl who stood a foot taller than me (which isn't hard I know), gallop toward me flailing her arms. I remember instantly getting tunnel vision and noticing that she had a band-aid over her one nostril that covered where a nose piercing lived - it instantly became my target. Even now when I think back on it, all I can see is that little round, beige band-aid begging for me to hit it. I lost the fight thad day with a score of 12-8, but made it all 3 rounds leaving her bruised and uninterested in a re-match and that made it a total win in my books. I did what I had set out to do - I made a wave. I made myself known not just to other boxers, but to the officials and refs. My dad was hilarious that entire fight because between every round, instead of instructing me, he just kept kissing me on the cheek. I remember telling him, and later having it posted in a local newspaper, "Dad, stop kissing me, I'm trying to look tough."

In October of that same year, I was able to land my second match with Henwaii McNealy. This short little thing who was dressed to the nines and had every guy drooling over her. We drove to Edmonton and it was already snowing heavily. My dad needed to be at a different fight that was qualifying one of our boys for some international fights, so I went along with the other coaches in my club, feeling a void that my dad couldn't be there to coach me through what I was about to do, especially since I had bronchitis and my body was feeling pretty destroyed. We had a really great brothering club out of Quesnel and they became a second family to me. About an hour before my fight, one of the boxers from Quesnel could see I was having trouble breathing and offered me some liquid ginseng, which I had never heard of before. He said, "It'll give you energy and open up your airways". He wasn't kidding! I got this amazing second wind, my lungs felt fresh and I stomped Henwaii, beating her 15-2. This time making myself known to a larger group of competitors. That fight still goes down as my all-time favorite fight, and that was the day my love of natural herbs and remedies began. Looking back on it now, I think that the biggest wave that was made was one of foresight into my future and what my new passions would be.

In 2002, one of the biggest years of my life occured. It was the year I was going to Nationals and was about to graduate from highschool. I was BC champ, and headed to my first National tournament. Boxers that made it were skilled, quick, fit and just as serious about what they were doing as any other boxer there. One thing my dad always used to tell us during training was that, "You should never take your opponent for granted. You needed to train more and train harder, because they'll be in the gym training to beat us too. It would come down to who had the most determination and who was in better shape." He was so right. One thing I never felt I was prepared for though, was the ability to decipher my own expectations and the expectations I thought others had of me. The morning of my fight, all I could think about was what others would say if I won, what others would say if I lost, who would be disappointed in me, or who would say I never deserved it. That was my first clue that something wasn't right that day. I fought a girl from Regina, also a weight up from my usual fighting weight and held my own, but lost the fight by 5 points. I was so consumed by what I thought others wanted, that I forgot why I was there? I won the silver medal, but felt pretty defeated mentally. The good that came out of that fight was a man by the name of Steve Choquette. He had a boxing club in St. Rosalie, Quebec and they won every fight they had that tournament. They were strong and fit and a force inside and outside the ring. They were all so friendly, but you couldn't hear a single voice in the ring other than theirs. After my fight, Steve approached me and said that even though I lost, my skill was well beyond the other girls and we all have bad fights sometimes. He got into conversation with my dad and asked if I would like to move there and train with his team to put together the first Women's Olympic team. We hadn't even been given a spot in the Olympics, but it was clearly someone else's goal too and not just a pipe-dream I had created in my own mind. After I got back home, we started talking on the phone regularly. I was making plans to find a family to board with and I was getting ready to start the road to the Olympics. It was such an honour to even be considered. And it was such an awesome feeling to see how far boxing had come. In our gym alone, we had a the strongest female boxing team in Canada. We had the most women boxers in the Nationals and we were a force to be reckoned with. Our junior, intermediate and senior team were all equally strong and we supported one another day in and day out. In so many ways, history had been made time and time again in our small little boxing club. We had Alex Legault, who was a 3 time Canadian Champ; Kristy Hillen, Lana Bloom, Anne-Marie Gareau, and many others who won bronze gloves, silver gloves, golden gloves, multiple provincial titles, and satndings in the top 3 spots at Nationals. It was such a joy spending time in the gym with these girls, training and sparring and pushing eachother to succeed.

Not long after my invitation to Quebec, they had announced that Women's Boxing would be a demonstration sport in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This was it, it was finally our time to show how hard we had trained and how much dedication we had given to our sport. I had set a date to move and was ready for my adventure to begin. However, not much longer after that, it had been announced that it wasn't going to happen. That there weren't enough women in other countries boxing to make it an Olympic sport and just like that, the dream was shattered. In the time that followed, I met Phil, the man of my dreams (who I never would've met had I gone), we moved across the country and I started the next dream, of having a family and going back to school. When Sebastien was 7 months old, I was going to school and remembered sitting in class and getting a call from my dad saying that it was officially announced that women would be contenders in London 2012. He didn't know what weight categories, but that it was official and the dream was a reality again. It hadn't been that long since I stopped boxing and it was only 2010 - I could do it. I could get fit and qualify again. It would be a lot of juggling, but it could be done. Not long after I hung up the phone with my dad, I started getting other calls asking if I was interested and what kind of boxing gyms were in Ottawa, where we had just recently moved. I started making arrangments right away, but always had this sinking feeling that it would take away from valualbe time with my little man. You can't do something like this and not eat, sleep, and breathe it. It has to be your life. It has to be everything you do. How do you do that with a new baby, a relationship, school and work? Two days after I started making arrangments, I found out I was pregnant with Sophia. The dream was dead again. This time though, I didn't feel as crushed because I already had so much. Obviously for any athlete there is thing about being unique, about making history, about trying to squeeze as much into your little life as possible and pushing yourself past the limits every day, so in a way I felt disappointed and still had that silly thought in my head "How can I make this work?" Truth be told though, I am much happier and healthier having not gone. And who says I can't squeeze tons into my little life? It just won't include the Olympics.

Now that the Olympics are finally here and women are making their debut on Sunday, I can't help but have a heavy heart about it. These girls will be the "Legends of Boxing", the real history makers. And yet, I think of girls like myself, Mandy Lapointe, Alex Legault, Kristy Hillen, Lana Bloom, Henwaii McNealy, and so many others that paved the way for these girls. That fought and fought and fought to even be allowed in the ring and be considered worthy of the sport. The days I would knock on door after door looking for pledges or sponsorship and had the door slammed in my face after I was told that boxing wasn't a women's sport and we didn't belong in there. Boxing for women has come a long long way, but it wasn't without a lot of blood, sweat and tears trying to make ourselves known. I know that those girls getting ready to fight don't even know me or the other girls that were there long before them, but I hope that somehwere, deep inside they have a gratitude for those of us who persisted until we were considered equals in the ring and never got to live the dream to its entirety.

I'm wishing each and every women that steps in that ring the best of luck and I hope they're ready. I'm so proud of them and what they're accomplishing, but it will be an extremely emotional day having to sit and watch from my television screen.

Make us proud girls!