TORONTO – Mandy Bujold is conducting an interview while rolling back and forth on a foam roller, kneading her hamstrings and glutes.
She’s wearing a sheen of sweat on her shoulders, her hair is drenched from a fierce morning sparring session. She’s keen to get home for a nap before she returns to Atlas Gym for a second workout later that day.
Four years after Olympic heartbreak, Bujold is all business in her quest for Canada’s first women’s boxing medal at the Rio Games, which begins Friday with a preliminary bout against Yodgoroy Mirzaeva of Uzbekistan.
“I’ve been preparing my entire life for this moment, so I just really have to focus on what matters, and on the training leading up to it,” she said.
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The 29-year-old from Kitchener, Ont., a 10-time national flyweight champion, was prepared for that moment four years ago, when women’s boxing made its Olympic debut. She thought she’d clinched her spot at the 2011 Pan Am Games, but the newness of the women’s event led to mass confusion.
It was decided the world championships would be the qualifier, and a random draw pitted Bujold against a world silver medallist Kim Hye-Song of North Korea. Bujold lost by two points and was done.
Canada’s one wild-card spot on the Olympic team went to Mary Spencer.
“Not going to London was a heartbreking moment for me, but it’s also been my motivator for the last four years,” Bujold said. “When I didn’t qualify, it was kind of like, ‘OK, now I’ve got to make changes in my career, I’m going to do what I have to do so that there’s no possible chance of me not going to the next Olympics.”‘
One of those changes was moving to Toronto to work full-time with Romanian coach Adrian Tudorescu, who guided Lennox Lewis to gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
At the back of a gritty industrial park in north Toronto, the gym is jam-packed with boxing memorabilia. There are giant black and white photos of Ali and Frazier and Lewis. There are motivational sayings and reminders of proper boxing etiquette. “Without order and discipline there can be no high performance results in training and life,” says one poster.
On this particular morning, Bujold is sparring with Amanda Galle, a former rival who offered to help in her Olympic preparation.
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“I always wanted to fight (Bujold), because she was the girl to beat,” said Galle. “It was nothing personal. She was the girl to beat to get to Rio. And now she’s on her way, I’m honoured to be a teammate.”
Bujold and Galle bob and weave around the ring as if in a choreographed dance. With each fist she throws, Bujold emits a noise – “Tew! Tew!” – that sounds like a child shooting an imaginary lazer gun.
It’s different from the heavy punching bag, which she hits with a loud grunt: “Ugh. Ugh.”
“I’m pushing the air,” she explained later. “I don’t even notice it. When I’m on the bag, I’m trying to hit harder, so it’s ‘Ugh Ugh,’ as opposed to in the ring, you have to be quicker and lighter on your feet.”
Bujold’s speed, Galle said, is her greatest strength.
Galle, who has suffered some disappointments of her own in her boxing career, said she understands Bujold’s burning desire to rewrite her Olympic story.
“She’s had her trials and tribulations and she’s never quit, 2012 she didn’t get the wild card that was given to Canada and I’m sure that hurt, but it made her have more of an itch this time around,” Galle said. “For her, now that she’s been granted this opportunity, she’s got that itch.”
Bujold won her second Pan Am Games title last summer in Toronto, beating 2014 world champion Marlen Esparza, and snapping the American’s 26-bout winning streak.
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Bujold had a disappointing world championships in May, however, losing her second bout to Sandra Drabik of Poland.
“I thought it was a pretty easy fight, but the decision ended up going the other way, split decision. I was really, really surprised,” Bujold said. “I don’t know what happened as far as the judging goes, but at the same time, as we’re getting ready for the Olympics and we’re eliminating competition, they’re also doing the same thing with the judges.
“So it could have just been bad judging, and hopefully those judges won’t be in Rio. . . it’s too bad that our paths crossed at that time, but it’s better to happen there than happen at the Olympics.”
Canada is sending only two other boxers to Rio – Ariane Fortin of St. Redempteur, Que., who also missed London after losing the Canadian qualifier to Spencer, a friends-turn-foes story that was immortalized in the documentary “Last Woman Standing,” and Arthur Biyarslanov of Toronto.
All three are considered medal hopes. Canada’s last Olympic boxing medal was 1996 when David Defiagbon of Halifax took silver.
Bujold has her sights set on the podium. And four years after she watched women’s boxing history unfold, heartbroken from her living room couch, Bujold said these ones mean that much more.
“It actually feels that much more rewarding because I know that I had to work every moment for this, that nothing is ever handed to me, and that this is really because of my hard work and dedication that I put into the sport.”
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