Caitlin Parker: “I want to win an Olympic gold medal more than anything. It’s what I think about all the time. It’s all I have ever dreamed of.”

Caitlin Parker: “I want to win an Olympic gold medal more than anything. It’s what I think about all the time. It’s all I have ever dreamed of.”

I last interviewed the Australian Olympic hopeful Caitlin Parker nearly three years ago. Parker was then temporarily residing in Sheffield. The Australian team was in town. Moving on from a sterile and frustrating Olympic experience in Tokyo.

The Covid times were slowly moving away. Parker was looking ahead to the Paris Olympics and hoping to improve on reaching the last sixteen in Tokyo.

Parker has indeed moved on. Medals in the 2022 Commonwealth Games and the following year’s World Amateur Championships say plenty. That silver medal Parker earned last year indicates there is every chance she could go one better in Paris later this year.

“A lot has changed since Tokyo,” Parker told me over Zoom. “I had to make changes to my training and the mental side of things. I’ve worked on every single element that could possibly go in to improve. Everyone always says about that 1%, and that is what I have tried to do. That 1% improvement in everything, every single day. I feel as though I am coming into my prime, and this is my time. I really believe in myself, and that really helps, having that self-belief. It has shown in my boxing. I avenged my Olympic loss. I was defeated by Panama’s Atheyna Bylon in Tokyo, but I faced her in the 2023 World Championships, and I got that win back. So that was a nice feeling to see and show the improvements. Winning a silver medal there, losing out only on a split decision to the fighter from the home country, shows what I am capable of. I am so excited to go out there and show the world.”

The build-up to Tokyo in 2021 was hampered severely by the harsh Covid restrictions that were imposed in her native land. It’s fair to say the Australian team was hit harder than most.

“It’s not making excuses or anything, but I didn’t have the ideal preparation,” Parker says of those incredibly hard times. “I think that showed in the ring. I hadn’t fought for eighteen months, not since I had my qualifier. I had moved to Melbourne, which had one of the most severe lockdowns in the world. We were only allowed to leave the house for one hour a day. I couldn’t make it to the gym, so I was training by myself for seven months. I managed to get out and go into quarantine for two weeks before we went to Darwin. I could then go and train in Queensland, and it was pretty much normal there. We had to fight just to get out to the US before we flew out to Tokyo and had a multi-nations training camp. So I was grateful to get at least some kind of work in with other countries before the Olympic Games.”

Parker is very much on a mission. Reaching the last sixteen in Tokyo didn’t satisfy. She has always wanted more. The gold medal is her goal. The only goal. But Parker will have to create history to realise her dreams. No Australian fighter has ever won a gold medal in an Olympic Games. No female fighter has won a medal of any description at the fabled tournament.

“I do think that will change in these Olympics,” Parker confidently told me about the possibility of ending that rather unflattering statistic. “Obviously, that’s my goal. I want to win an Olympic gold medal more than anything. It’s what I think about all the time. It’s my screensaver on my phone. It’s all I have ever dreamed of. When women’s boxing was introduced for the first in the Olympics in 2012, I thought that was then my goal, I was going to go to the Olympics. But obviously, over time, that changed, and now I want to go and win a gold medal. I know that I am capable of it, and as long as I do everything that I need to do in the ring, I know I am more than good enough to win that gold medal.”

Those thoughts of standing on that Olympic podium with a fighter on either side of her with a gold medal safely in her grip have long been there. But while that is the immediate priority, Parker is tentatively looking ahead to a possible life in the paid ranks.

“In my head, everything is towards Paris. That is everything that I have been working towards my entire life. But to be honest, the thoughts of going pro are there. Obviously, we will reassess and see how I feel after the Olympics. But definitely, I would love to give that a go.”

The journey has been long. Over a decade on the Australian team hasn’t come easy for the middleweight contender.

“We have to sacrifice so much of ourselves,” Parker says of her time in the sport. “Money isn’t flying around for us. We have to work, and if we can’t work, we have to rely on sponsors. I work as much as I can, but obviously, coming into an Olympic year, work is pushed aside, so I don’t worry about all that now. I am very lucky to have all my local community helping me out doing raffles and fundraising, which has been incredible. I live with my partner who has just done his Achilles, and now he can’t work. So, with all that local support, it is great not having to stress.”

“I have been on the Australian team travelling around the world since I was fifteen. I have learned so much,” Parker relayed to me when I asked her what the sport has given her. “I was even doing it while I was in school. You meet some amazing people and gather so many skills. I know myself that my parents never had any money. They both worked multiple jobs seven days a week to make sure that I could go to training and national tournaments. I know I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to travel the world without boxing. Through boxing, I have gained so much self-confidence. I used to be so shy. It has really brought me out of my shell. I have worked with so many incredible people and got to know the limits of my body. Even when I don’t do well in a tournament, it’s then seeing how I can bounce back and get even better. In the ring, when you put so much in and then have your hand raised, it is the most addictive feeling in the world. That feeling is so unmatched because you feel so alive and is unmatched to anything else.”

Parker is beyond positive in her mind. A fighter who has come so far since Tokyo. There have been defeats along the way, but the Australian uses those setbacks as a springboard to be better next time.

“Of course, losing happens, and that is a thing. But you have to learn from it and realise you are not perfect and that there are always mistakes and that is what you have to work on next. A loss just makes you even hungrier. As soon as I stepped out of the ring in Tokyo, I told myself that I was going to Paris to get that medal.”

Parker seems to be in a very good place. There is something different about her. A fighter who has grown in many ways since our last conversation in 2021. Her words echo confidence. They are not spoken with delusion. The results in recent times show that Parker has every reason to think the Olympics will have a ring of gold in the air. Don’t be surprised if Caitlin Parker creates a little slice of history in Paris.