Kitchener’s Mandy Bujold retiring from boxing
Posted Apr 20, 2022 05:59:00 PM.
Two-time Olympian and Kitchener resident Mandy Bujold is retiring from boxing.
The 34-year-old made the announcement on her website.
She explained she's using this as an opportunity to celebrate her career, adding it's something she feels she has never actually done.
“I feel like I've gone from one event to the next and I was always so narrowly-focused on that next big achievement that I never took the time to enjoy my achievements, celebrate them and really understand how big some of them were,” Bujold said.
During her time in the ring, Bujold won 11 national fly weight titles and represented Canada at the Olympics in 2016 and 2020. She also won a pair of gold medals at the Pan American Games in 2011 and 2015.
But she had to battle outside of the ring to get in the Tokyo Olympics, which were held in 2021 due to the pandemic.
Bujold took her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which ruled the International Olympic Committee's Boxing Task Force must include an accommodation for women who were pregnant or postpartum during the qualifying period.
She argued discrimination based on sex, as she took time off for pregnancy.
After a competitive year erased by COVID-19, Bujold was confident she'd clinch an Olympic berth at the qualifier in Buenos Aires, but after that event was cancelled, athletes were selected on a revised ranking system that used three events between 2018 and 2019 – events she missed because they conflicted with her maternity leave. Bujold's daughter Kate Olympia was born on Nov. 5, 2018.
In the post announcing her retirement, Bujold calls that victory both “huge and important”.
“There are a lot of opportunities in the works right now from what happened in that case that are going to lead to bigger things and, hopefully, a bigger change than any gold medal could have ever done,” she said.
Bujold plans to stay involved in the sport she said has given her so much. She also thanked her fans, supporters, friends and family for their support over the years.
Full article: https://t.co/FZMtDyva1B pic.twitter.com/FvTTUNlHqu
— Mandy Bujold (@MandyBujold) April 20, 2022
— With files from The Canadian Press
