Jajaira Gonzalez: “It feels great. But at the same time, I can’t quite believe it because it hasn’t hit me yet.”

Jajaira Gonzalez: “It feels great. But at the same time, I can’t quite believe it because it hasn’t hit me yet.”

For all the controversy around the lack of drug tests within the sport, the fact that my scheduled Zoom interview with Jajaira Gonzalez was delayed slightly by an unscheduled visit from the United States Anti-Doping Agency was in many ways refreshing. The sport of boxing could certainly do more to make it a clean sport, or at least somewhere near, but at least there is some work being done on that front. It wasn’t the first such visit for Gonzalez. The UK should take note.

Gonzalez is quite rightly on a high. The long chase for a place on Team USA has finally ended. The golden ticket to Paris was secured at the recent Pan-American Games in Chile, courtesy of a victory over the Uruguayan Camila Piñeiro Muiño that booked her seat on the plane to next year’s Olympic Games. In many ways, it has been a long time coming.

“It feels great. But at the same time, I can’t quite believe it because it hasn’t hit me yet,” a clearly happy but also an extremely relieved Gonzalez told me. “I cried a little bit on the bus the next day when I watched my teammates compete. I was listening to a song, and the song made me cry, and then I started thinking that I really had qualified for the Olympics. But it was brief, and then it went away in my head because my goal was to get gold, and I only got the bronze. So even though I had qualified and got a medal, I was still thinking I could have done more. I could have done better. But then I tell myself, everything happens for a reason. I just have to turn it up a little more in training, work a little bit harder, and get them at the actual Olympic Games.”

The success and the coveted Olympic spot that came with it caps a quite remarkable comeback for the American. Gonzalez had lost her way in many ways, after a defeat that ended her Olympic dreams for the 2016 Games and after nearly four years away battling her demons and so much more, Gonzalez returned with a vengeance to get back what was previously lost. Albeit at a new weight.

“I think my last competition was the 2018 Nationals. I then started competing again, and I went to the 2021 Nationals, which put me on the team for 2022,” Gonzalez told FightPost. “The crazy thing about is that I had actually lost my spot for 2023, so I was in a different weight class. I was at 57kgs, and they took two of us to compete in Bulgaria. The other girl who I was up against for the spot got one day further than me in the tournament. That one day was all that defined us. So because of that, I was off the team from March up until June. The girl at 60kgs had been booted off the team for disciplinary reasons, and they told me I had got enough points in the system if I wanted to go and compete against another fighter who wanted the spot. I was so close to saying no. But something just told me to just go for it, take that chance. If it happens, it happens. I went over there, dominated, and I got the spot. It was a blessing. I got a second chance, and I feel a lot of people don’t get second chances. I had to be 100% focused, and when I qualified, I was meant for this.”

Gonzalez was previously considered almost a certainty for the 2016 Olympic Games. The blue-chip prospect was in the form of her life until a couple of disputed defeats to Mikaela Mayer changed everything.

“If I am being honest, I felt I should have been the one going to qualify for the 2016 Olympics. I fought her in my second fight at the trials. I was very confident. I thought I did better. I felt like I dominated. But I lost on a split decision. I was in disbelief. That was my fight. People were coming up to me and telling me that I won that fight, and they robbed you,” Gonzalez relayed to me. The pain of that time still has not completely gone away. “But you have to lose twice to be eliminated, so I went in the losers bracket. I had to work my way up to the loser’s bracket, and I met Mikaela again in what was supposed to be the loser’s bracket, and I beat her unanimously. They had to extend the tournament by an extra day because we were now one and one. I fought her the same way, I felt like I dominated, and I lost on a split. I didn’t deserve to lose, and that kind of broke me a little bit. I worked so hard. I was so focused. I was so disciplined. And they still did me like this. I have seen it happen to other people, but it has never happened to me. So it was kind of hard to get over that. I did lose confidence after that. Even if you do everything right, they can still take it away from you.”

Those defeats hit hard. Her priorities changed. The discipline for her craft was lacking. A break from the sport was extended further by the worldwide pandemic that crashed the world in 2020, and Gonzalez looked lost to the sport forever.

“I started slacking a little bit. I started dating someone, and that shifted my focus,” Gonzalez says. “I was putting more work into my relationship and not my career. I had family issues, and I was in the military at the time, boxing for them. So I wasn’t really happy and I wasn’t training hard. I boxed in the Nationals in 2018 and lost to a girl I had stopped three times previously. It was nobody’s fault but mine. I had only trained two weeks for that. This just proves that if you are not working hard and you are taking stuff for granted, and you fight someone who you are better than, but if they are working hard, then they can beat you. My confidence went down. I wanted to take a year off. But then the pandemic happened, and then it was more than a year.

“So during Covid, I gained thirty-five pounds, so I was really heavy. I got depressed and knew I couldn’t compete. So then I started missing it. I was living in Virginia at the time, and all my family was in California. I was alone in Virginia, working a regular job in a kickboxing gym. I would scroll on my phone, and I would see Team USA, and they would be travelling and doing all these tournaments. I would be looking and thinking I have beaten that girl before, and she is on the team. That could have been me, and I was over here doing nothing, eating bad and picking up bad habits and not training. So, I started training with my dad again. He got me ready for the Nationals in 2021, and that was it. I told myself never to let a weak mind get the best of me again. I feel myself going back to the Jajaira Gonzalez before 2016. That’s my mindset now. Not everything will be perfect all the time. You will have a bad day and run into bad times, but don’t let it overtake you. Every day is a new day, you can’t just sit there. I used to just sit there and feel bad for myself instead of using it to motivate myself and do better. I’m glad it kind of happened because me going through that nothing can faze me now.”

The qualification for Paris you sense is only the beginning for Jajaira Gonzalez. A fighter still playing catch-up for the time away. The aim is very much to keep improving and her eyes are firmly set on a gold medal in Paris. The 26-year-old is on a high, but she wants to go even higher.

“I still feel as though I am a little behind. I’ve had three and half years away, and I could have been better than what I am now. In 2021, I still needed a lot of work, but from then to now, I can see a lot of improvements in certain areas. But I still feel as though I am three and a half years behind. But I will continue to progress, and it’s very exciting.”

Gonzalez, despite the time away, doesn’t appear to be letting that hiatus dictate her future. But what she does in Paris will. The temptation to turn professional is there. A gold medal in France, and there will likely be enough promoters knocking on her door with lucrative contracts to make that temptation too hard to resist.

“I’m still thinking about turning professional,” Gonzalez told me. “I want to go pro, but in Los Angeles in 2028, that is home. I think it would be really cool to stay and do another Olympic cycle and fight in my home Olympics. But the pros seem really fun too. I’ll decide after Paris and see how I feel then.”       

A story and a career that once looked over is now at a new beginning.