Overview

All OIympic debutants, the soon to be famous five are middleweight Caitlin Parker, featherweight Skye Nicholson, lightweight Harry Garside, light heavy Paulo Aokuso and flyweight Alex Winwood.

While each of their journeys to the Games is unique the team shares a common goal, all hoping to do what no Australian has done. 

The featherweights are the first to enter the ring at the renowned Kokugikan stadium which is home to major Sumo events. However, 2018 Commonwealth Games Gold medallist Nicholson won’t be in action today, having drawn a first round bye. 

At 25, Nicholson is a veteran of 143 fights and has been an inspiration to young girls across the country. The Queenslander carries the spirit of her late brothers Jamie and Gavin into her fights. They were killed in a car accident before Skye was born. 

“Every time I step through the ropes I feel them with me,” Skye said prior to her Gold medal performance on the Gold Coast. Jamie was a Barcelona Olympian and the bond between the two, who never met, is palpable. 

"I feel close to [Jamie]. It's a little bit eerie, I feel like I know him so well. Boxing has brought us closer. I'm doing everything he did. It's surreal. I know he's looking down on me. I know he's proud of me. I talk to him and I didn't even know him. It's pretty crazy, hey? But I have chats with him all the time. I talk to him leading up to really big fights,” Nicholson said. 

Nicholson will fight South Korean Aeji Im on Monday. 

The first Australian in action is another Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist charismatic chatterbox Harry Garside, who recently challenged himself to go 48 hours without speaking. 

Garside was only 20 when he announced himself on the world stage in 2018 and every month challenges himself to do something that makes him uncomfortable. 

“I test myself out of the ring, it makes me more fearless in the ring. I’m willing to take risks to grow as a person and growing outside the ring helps me inside,” he said.  

What’s followed is everything from karaoke to ballet but keeping his mouth shut was the toughest. “That was so hard because I’m a massive chatterbox, but it taught me that maybe I need to let other people talk more and listen.’  

Garside fights PNG athlete John Ume on Sunday with a tough contest against world number two Jonas Jonas of Namibia looming in the round of 16. 

On Monday, West Australia’s Alex Winwood, one of a record 16 indigenous athletes in the Australian team will enter the ring against Patrick Chinyemba of Zambia. 

“It was my dream to become an Olympian and make Brian (Sartori his coach) the coach of an Olympian, he’s a father figure, he’s helped me out so much,” Winwood said.  

Asked how it would feel to win Olympic Gold, Winwood can hardly imagine. 

“Before I qualified, I thought about what it would be like and when it happened, it was completely different. The euphoria was too much to deal with. I couldn’t believe it. If that’s what it feels like just to qualify, I have no idea what it would be like to win.” 

Next up for Australia will be light heavyweight prospect Paulo Aokuso, a man proud of his Polynesian heritage who fights in honour of his family. 

“My mum and dad inspire me every day, they have worked so hard to put a roof over our heads they have done everything they can to support us,” he said. 

Paulo’s brother Austin recently turned pro with a first up KO victory ‘I was thinking I want to turn pro one day, but being here in the village, seeing all these great athletes, it makes me want to stay amateur, to be like them.”  

Aokuso will fight Spaniard Gazi Jalidov on Wednesday with his likely quarter final opponent the world’s number one ranked light heavyweight, Kazakstan’s Bekzad Nurdauletov who beat the Australian just last year. 

The last Australian in action is middleweight hope Caitlin Parker, described by Danny Green as “a beast in the ring” she fights Atheyna Bylon of Panama, on Saturday July 31. 

“To win here in Tokyo would be a dream come true, I’ve visualised it, I know I can beat all of them on the day,” said the girl who started boxing at 11, to learn how to defend herself. 

“I actually started Taekwondo first, dad told me he wouldn’t let me walk to school until I had a black belt.”  

Should Parker win her opening bout, the woman likely to be standing in her way will the world number one, Great Britain’s Lauren Price. The two met in the final at the Commonwealth Games with Price taking Gold but it’s a defeat Parker has since avenged.  

“We are one each, I know I can beat her. If we fight, I’m ready.”  

Parker has improved enormously in the past two years, her ability to fight inside now much stronger, making her a more dangerous opponent. 

Away from the Australians keep an eye on Cuban Lazaro Alverez who is hoping to become the first boxer to win Olympic medals in three different weight divisions. In 2012 he won Bronze as a bantamweight, in RIO Bronze as a lightweight and in Tokyo the 30-year-old will fight as a featherweight.  

Olympic Boxing 

In the ring, the competition is an elimination series, starting at the round of 32. Winner’s progress and there is no box off for the Bronze medal with both losing semi-finalists awarded Bronze. Fighters must make their weight every day or they are disqualified. They must also pass a daily medical. Should a fighter win a bout but be declared medically unfit before the next round, then they are withdrawn and the next round opponent is awarded the bout in a walkover. 

Bouts are held over three, three-minute rounds with one-minute breaks. Ringside judges score the fights under the 10-point must system. This means the winner of the round receives 10 points with the loser 9 or less. The maligned, electronic punch count system was abandoned after the 2012 Games. 

There are eight weight classes for men from 52 kg to 91+kg and five weight classes for women from 51kg through to 75kg. The first medals will be awarded in the women’s featherweight on July 31 with the last being the men’s heavyweight decided on the final day of the Games August 8. 

Did you know:  

• Australia has never won an Olympic Gold medal in Boxing, the great sporting allrounder Snowy Baker took silver in 1908 and Spike Cheney did the same 80 years later in Seoul. 
• Tony Madigan is Australia’s only three-time boxing Olympian, he was famously beaten in a light-heavyweight semi-final in 1960 by a brash young man named Cassius Clay, who would become Mohammed Ali. 
• Australian Olympic Swimming champion Harold Hardwick 
• Jeff Fenech lost a controversial quarter final at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. He would go on to win professional world titles in three weight divisions and his record includes a revenge victory over LA Gold Medallist Steve McCrory. 
• Women’s boxing was introduced in 2012 and Great Britain’s Nicola Adams and USA’s Claressa Shields are both two-time Gold Medallists.  
• Only three boxers have won three Olympic Gold medals, Hungary’s Laszlo Papp and Cuban greats Felix Savon and Teofilo Stevenson. There are 14 two-time Gold medal winners, include Ukraine superstar Vasily Lomachenko. 
• The USA is the most successful nation in Olympic boxing with 50 Gold medals and an overall tally of 114.