Jajaira Gonzalez left boxing after missing out on the Rio Olympics. She fought her way back to Paris

AP Sports Writer

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Jajaira Gonzalez was scrolling through social media at her job in a Virginia kickboxing gym about three years ago when she spotted some of her former USA Boxing teammates traveling the world, competing for medals and generally living their best lives.

The Instagram post hit Gonzalez like a stiff jab, snapping her out of a quarter-life slumber.

“They were in the water in Spain, and I was suddenly like, ‘I should be there,’” she said. “What am I doing here? Like, I’m fat. I haven’t worked out. I haven’t been to the gym in a long time. I was like: ‘I need to change my life. I need to get back to my life.’ I wasn’t born to just be doing this regular job. I’m supposed to travel the world doing what I love.”

Gonzalez was once the most promising amateur female boxer in the U.S. — a teenage prodigy with power, endless stamina and ample skill from years of sparring with her older brothers while training under their demanding father, Jose. Three of her brothers — Joet, Jousce and Jonjairo — have since fought professionally.

But Jajaira fell agonizingly short of a trip to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, losing a narrow decision in her final fight for a spot on the U.S. team in late 2015.

The fire inside Gonzalez dimmed to an ember in the next half-decade as she navigated depression, a high-profile relationship, an ill-advised stint in the Army and an anxiety-laced malaise familiar to many whose adolescent dreams just never came true.

“Boxing was everything to me at the time,” Gonzalez said. “After that, I didn’t really care for it. That definitely shifted my focus.”

By 2021, Gonzalez had been out of boxing for about four years. She was estranged from some members of her Southern California family and stranded on the wrong side of the continent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With one look at her ex-teammates living it up on social media, the flame roared back to life.

She moved back out west and got back in the gym. She reconciled with most of her family and rededicated her life to boxing.

Several years after she gave up on her dream, and less than two years after she started over, Gonzalez qualified for the Paris Olympics.

“This is like Lazarus coming back from the dead,” USA Boxing head coach Billy Walsh said with a laugh. “I think she’s grateful of the fact that this opportunity came around again. She’s mature enough to understand that two Olympics passed her by, and now she gets her opportunity. This is maybe the one chance she gets to really deliver and to get a medal.”

Now 27, Gonzalez has transformed herself into a clear contender with strong medal chances despite being in a stacked weight class — particularly if she draws opponents who can be worn down and frustrated by her superior athleticism.

“She’s got one of the best engines in the world, so we need to marry that with her punches and letting her hands go,” Walsh said. “She needs to go to work early, because nobody can stick to the pace she sets up. I think that’s going to be a good tactic for her. There won’t be too many girls who can stick with her at 60 kilos.”

Gonzalez heads to Paris knowing that her winding journey back to boxing prepared her for just about anything.

She was mentally adrift while the Rio Olympics came and went without her, so she joined the Army with a plan to box for the military’s vaunted program. The hardworking mentality instilled by her father allowed her to handle the challenges of being a soldier, but she grew disenchanted with enlistment because she felt the Army’s boxing trainers didn’t push her hard enough.

After she left the Army, Gonzalez lost focus. She didn’t train properly for the 2018 national championships, and she lost her spot on the U.S. team with an upset defeat.

Gonzalez was also dating Shakur Stevenson, the silver medal-winning Rio bantamweight who went on to a solid pro career. In one of the most uncomfortable matchups in boxing history, Joet Gonzalez lost a decision to his sister’s boyfriend for the WBO featherweight title in 2019 at the height of Gonzalez’s estrangement from her family.

The relationship gradually ended, but Gonzalez was still living on Stevenson’s native East Coast when she saw the Instagram post that sparked her to change her life.

She went into therapy to improve her mental approach. Her father trained her again, and her mother cooked low-calorie meals.

Gonzalez shed her extra weight — and then she shed more to get down to 125 pounds (57 kilograms) in an attempt to stay out of her original 60-kilo division, which was dominated by Tokyo Olympian and world champion Rashida Ellis. But she had competition at 57 kilos in the promising Alyssa Mendoza, a precocious teenager from a Mexican-American family, just like Gonzalez eight years earlier.

Gonzalez and Mendoza both went to a tournament in Bulgaria in February 2023 with the understanding that whoever went farther would be the 57-kilo contender on the U.S. team. Gonzalez had the misfortune to draw Bulgaria’s own Svetlana Staneva in the quarterfinals, and Mendoza got the spot by lasting one day longer.

Once again, Gonzalez’s Olympic dream appeared dead.

“I love Alyssa, and she’s always been super-sweet and humble, but at the same time, I was like, ‘What am I going to do now?’” Gonzalez said. “I was looking for a job, because my job was boxing. Once I didn’t make the team, I was broke, and I didn’t want to ask for help.”

But then USA Boxing asked her if she would be interested in moving back up in weight to be its No. 2 fighter at 132 pounds (60 kilograms). Gonzalez hesitated, knowing she would be behind Ellis, but agreed when she learned Ellis might not be long for the program.

Gonzalez added the weight rather easily, and when Ellis indeed left USA Boxing in a split blamed on disciplinary reasons, Gonzalez was suddenly the No. 1 U.S. contender at lightweight. She went to the Pan-Am Games last fall and barged right into the semifinals, becoming the first American boxer to qualify for Paris.

Along with her usual intense training, Gonzalez has been preparing for the Olympics in other ways. She has dyed part of her hair pink — her favorite color — to stand out, and she got the Olympic rings tattooed on her thigh in mid-January.

“My dad got kind of mad, because he was like, ‘You’re not an Olympian yet,’” Gonzalez said with a smile. “’You’re not over there.’ I was like, ‘I’m not going to lose my ticket this time.’”

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games