LONDON—She slipped in the back door, getting to these Olympics on a wild card after a shocking early loss in qualifying.
Then she got what she called “an amazing draw” that gave her a bye in the first round.
Now boxer Mary Spencer, arguably Canada’s face of these Games, is going to have to prove it in the ring.
Spencer will face Jinzi Li, a Chinese boxer she has beaten previously, in her first bout Monday in the middleweight (less than 75 kilograms) division. The 27-year-old Windsor fighter needs a victory over Li to reach the final four and assure herself of a medal. Two bronze medals are awarded in boxing.
“I’m completely ready. I was just telling my coaches that the timing is perfect. I’m feeling that peak. I’m looking forward to fighting,” Spencer said after a recent training session here. “I’m going to be even more ready when it comes time to step in the ring.”
There were times, recently, when Spencer’s readiness was in question. She is a three-time world champion but back-to-back losses in the spring raised some concerns.
In what was anticipated as a simple tuneup bout for the world championship, Spencer lost to 17-year-old American Claressa Shields. It was just her ninth career defeat. She has 110 wins, according to her coach Charlie Stewart, most in dominating fashion.
Loss No. 10 then came quickly and even more unexpectedly. In her first bout at those world championships in Beijing, Spencer lost to Sweden’s Anna Laurell. She needed only a top-eight finish to punch her ticket to the Olympics. Spencer was eventually given a wild card by the sport’s governing body based on her previous success.
In what should be the fight of the day in women’s boxing, Laurell and Shields face each other Monday on the opposite half of the draw from Spencer.
Spencer’s coaches look back at the losses to Shields and, especially, Laurell as a timely wake-up call for a woman who has been an intimidating force in the ring since she began boxing at Stewart’s Windsor club as a 17-year-old. They say she is training better and hungrier than ever.
But Spencer said she never believed she was dominant enough that the wins were automatic.
“I never felt that I was untouchable,” she said. “I had two losses this year, which makes 10 total. I’ve had eight before that. I know what it’s like to lose. I know there are girls out there who, if I’m not at my best, are going to beat me so I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a wake-up call. It’s just a reminder for me and everybody else but I knew these girls were good.”
The Canadian boxers have been working out away from the Olympic facilities to help keep them focused on the matter at hand and not get caught up in the Olympic hype.
So far it’s been working. Canada’s two male boxers are off to a good start. Nova Scotia welterweight Custio Clayton won his first two bouts while super heavyweight Simon Kean was victorious in his first.
Kean will also fight Monday against Kazakhstan’s Ivan Dychko. Clayton will fight Tuesday against Freddie Evans of Wales in the quarter-finals. If he wins that bout, he would guarantee himself a medal.
Then she got what she called “an amazing draw” that gave her a bye in the first round.
Now boxer Mary Spencer, arguably Canada’s face of these Games, is going to have to prove it in the ring.
Spencer will face Jinzi Li, a Chinese boxer she has beaten previously, in her first bout Monday in the middleweight (less than 75 kilograms) division. The 27-year-old Windsor fighter needs a victory over Li to reach the final four and assure herself of a medal. Two bronze medals are awarded in boxing.
“I’m completely ready. I was just telling my coaches that the timing is perfect. I’m feeling that peak. I’m looking forward to fighting,” Spencer said after a recent training session here. “I’m going to be even more ready when it comes time to step in the ring.”
There were times, recently, when Spencer’s readiness was in question. She is a three-time world champion but back-to-back losses in the spring raised some concerns.
In what was anticipated as a simple tuneup bout for the world championship, Spencer lost to 17-year-old American Claressa Shields. It was just her ninth career defeat. She has 110 wins, according to her coach Charlie Stewart, most in dominating fashion.
Loss No. 10 then came quickly and even more unexpectedly. In her first bout at those world championships in Beijing, Spencer lost to Sweden’s Anna Laurell. She needed only a top-eight finish to punch her ticket to the Olympics. Spencer was eventually given a wild card by the sport’s governing body based on her previous success.
In what should be the fight of the day in women’s boxing, Laurell and Shields face each other Monday on the opposite half of the draw from Spencer.
Spencer’s coaches look back at the losses to Shields and, especially, Laurell as a timely wake-up call for a woman who has been an intimidating force in the ring since she began boxing at Stewart’s Windsor club as a 17-year-old. They say she is training better and hungrier than ever.
But Spencer said she never believed she was dominant enough that the wins were automatic.
“I never felt that I was untouchable,” she said. “I had two losses this year, which makes 10 total. I’ve had eight before that. I know what it’s like to lose. I know there are girls out there who, if I’m not at my best, are going to beat me so I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a wake-up call. It’s just a reminder for me and everybody else but I knew these girls were good.”
The Canadian boxers have been working out away from the Olympic facilities to help keep them focused on the matter at hand and not get caught up in the Olympic hype.
So far it’s been working. Canada’s two male boxers are off to a good start. Nova Scotia welterweight Custio Clayton won his first two bouts while super heavyweight Simon Kean was victorious in his first.
Kean will also fight Monday against Kazakhstan’s Ivan Dychko. Clayton will fight Tuesday against Freddie Evans of Wales in the quarter-finals. If he wins that bout, he would guarantee himself a medal.
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London 2012: Custio Clayton wins Canada’s first boxing bout in eight years
The 24-year-old welterweight advanced to the quarter-finals with a 14-11 victory over Australia’s Cameron Hammond thanks to a third-round flurry.
“I saw he wasn’t going to pick it up, so I figured I had to do it,” Clayton said of Hammond, whose passive strategy forced the referee to warn him twice about not throwing punches.
Clayton also fought cautiously at first, mindful of Hammond’s superior reach, but was more aggressive and accurate throughout.
“I just had to move my head more, be more aggressive. ... I couldn’t ask for anything better. The first couple of rounds were slow, but I picked it up. It feels great to be here.”
The 24-year-old Dartmouth native is also the first Canadian — Halifax heavyweight David Defiagbon earned silver in Atlanta — to reach the quarters in 16 years.
Clayton takes on Britain’s Freddie Evans on Tuesday.
WOMEN'S BOXING IN THE OLYMPICS
LONDON—Since women’s boxing isn’t kitsch enough already, they brought out a spandex-wrapped Dance Pak to rile the audience ahead of the event’s debut on Sunday.
Nothing says “Olympic spirit” like chicks humping the turnbuckles.
The fight crowd at the cavernous ExCeL venue has been the rowdiest (and likely the drunkest) at this Olympics for a week.
They cheered the entry of the first two fighters, a pair of 112 lb. flyweights from North Korea and Russia.
But once the bell rang, the crowd fell silent. Pin-drop quiet. All the way up at the back of the arena, you could hear leather hitting leather.
Several thousand people were having a simultaneous internal ethical discussion, trying to figure out if it’s OK to enjoy watching women beat each other up.
Since they had no dog in this fight, most decided it wasn’t. They continued on in relative silence until the results were announced. Then they applauded politely for the Russian winner and sympathetically for the North Korean loser.
“The Dear Leader would like to congratulate you on your efforts. Oh, wait. It says here that you lost. Well, have fun on the collective farm.”
Eventually the fans surrendered. By the time Indian Mary Kom — the biggest name in the sport — was rolled out, they were positively frothing. Eventually, they’ll figure out a way to make bear baiting and gander pulling Olympic events.
At the first modern Olympiad, there were nine categories of sport. There are 36 in London.
None of the originals required a trampoline. They didn’t have to truck in sand. No women pummelled each other.
Call me an enemy of progress, but there is something distasteful about a hooting crowd watching women fight. Especially so at the Olympics.
The sport is young, but it’s already got the post-bout drama down. After Kom whipped her opponent, Poland’s Karolina Michalczuk, the fighter blamed the referee for the loss. Her coach quit his job in the press mixed zone, after ripping the suits who control Polish boxing.
Only one day old, this new event already combines the best elements of Days of Our Lives and The Gong Show.
Like a great many events being contested here, women’s boxing does not belong in the Olympics.
If this is about inclusiveness, the International Olympic Committee will cave to the British male synchro swimming team that is lobbying for a spot in Rio. Since no one will watch guys in nose plugs doing pas de deux, the IOC is not going to cave. Some sports just don’t translate across the sexes, however long we hold our breath and wish for a perfect, genderless world.
Having crowded these Games, with a dumpster full of baffling sports no one plays or understands, the IOC continues to double down on a pair of tens.
That’s not the worst of it. The worst of it are the sports you know were chosen in a misguided effort to lure new viewers and, therefore, begin printing rather than earning money. It appears that the fiscal goal of this swishy clique is that each member has a private jet for himself and another for his luggage.
In 2016, golf will be an Olympic sport. Golf. You know why the ancient Greeks controlled huge swaths of the Aegean for so long? Because they understood that you can do more damage with a javelin than a golf club.
Golf is not a sport. Golf is what rich people do to fill the time before lunch. No one who’s ever seen John Daly thought the words “faster” or “stronger”. In fairness, “higher” probably applies.
The second new sport in Rio — bowdlerized rugby — is another choice taken by a fleet of marketers.
It could have been worse. They considered roller-skating and beach soccer.
In time, the Olympics will include everything anyone does anywhere — laundry folding, gin rummy, waiting in line, speed diving.
OK, I’m not even sure what I mean by speed diving. Maybe diving while holding an anvil.
(pause)
You know, I’d watch the hell out of that sport.
Now I feel like I’ve gone public with an idea I should have kept for myself. My private jet is in terrible need of refurbishing.
Nothing says “Olympic spirit” like chicks humping the turnbuckles.
The fight crowd at the cavernous ExCeL venue has been the rowdiest (and likely the drunkest) at this Olympics for a week.
They cheered the entry of the first two fighters, a pair of 112 lb. flyweights from North Korea and Russia.
But once the bell rang, the crowd fell silent. Pin-drop quiet. All the way up at the back of the arena, you could hear leather hitting leather.
Several thousand people were having a simultaneous internal ethical discussion, trying to figure out if it’s OK to enjoy watching women beat each other up.
Since they had no dog in this fight, most decided it wasn’t. They continued on in relative silence until the results were announced. Then they applauded politely for the Russian winner and sympathetically for the North Korean loser.
“The Dear Leader would like to congratulate you on your efforts. Oh, wait. It says here that you lost. Well, have fun on the collective farm.”
Eventually the fans surrendered. By the time Indian Mary Kom — the biggest name in the sport — was rolled out, they were positively frothing. Eventually, they’ll figure out a way to make bear baiting and gander pulling Olympic events.
At the first modern Olympiad, there were nine categories of sport. There are 36 in London.
None of the originals required a trampoline. They didn’t have to truck in sand. No women pummelled each other.
Call me an enemy of progress, but there is something distasteful about a hooting crowd watching women fight. Especially so at the Olympics.
The sport is young, but it’s already got the post-bout drama down. After Kom whipped her opponent, Poland’s Karolina Michalczuk, the fighter blamed the referee for the loss. Her coach quit his job in the press mixed zone, after ripping the suits who control Polish boxing.
Only one day old, this new event already combines the best elements of Days of Our Lives and The Gong Show.
Like a great many events being contested here, women’s boxing does not belong in the Olympics.
If this is about inclusiveness, the International Olympic Committee will cave to the British male synchro swimming team that is lobbying for a spot in Rio. Since no one will watch guys in nose plugs doing pas de deux, the IOC is not going to cave. Some sports just don’t translate across the sexes, however long we hold our breath and wish for a perfect, genderless world.
Having crowded these Games, with a dumpster full of baffling sports no one plays or understands, the IOC continues to double down on a pair of tens.
That’s not the worst of it. The worst of it are the sports you know were chosen in a misguided effort to lure new viewers and, therefore, begin printing rather than earning money. It appears that the fiscal goal of this swishy clique is that each member has a private jet for himself and another for his luggage.
In 2016, golf will be an Olympic sport. Golf. You know why the ancient Greeks controlled huge swaths of the Aegean for so long? Because they understood that you can do more damage with a javelin than a golf club.
Golf is not a sport. Golf is what rich people do to fill the time before lunch. No one who’s ever seen John Daly thought the words “faster” or “stronger”. In fairness, “higher” probably applies.
The second new sport in Rio — bowdlerized rugby — is another choice taken by a fleet of marketers.
It could have been worse. They considered roller-skating and beach soccer.
In time, the Olympics will include everything anyone does anywhere — laundry folding, gin rummy, waiting in line, speed diving.
OK, I’m not even sure what I mean by speed diving. Maybe diving while holding an anvil.
(pause)
You know, I’d watch the hell out of that sport.
Now I feel like I’ve gone public with an idea I should have kept for myself. My private jet is in terrible need of refurbishing.
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