Amber Farraway: “I want to go as far as I can.”

Amber Farraway: “I want to go as far as I can.”

Amber Farraway is another potential star off that seemingly never-ending Australian production line of elite female boxing talent. The 24-year-old has big ambitions. A desire to compete in next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, with the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028 a longer-term target. But Farraway is also aiming to enter the world of professional boxing. A fighter who wants to go as far as she can.

“I started boxing in 2020,” Farraway told FightPost over Zoom. “My boyfriend was boxing at the time, so I went along to the gym with him just to do some training. I hadn’t done any sports at that point, so it was really hard. I didn’t have my first fight until 2021. I kind of fell in love with the sport.”

That first fight was the start of the journey. A winning debut that set the scene quite nicely for what lay ahead. “I don’t really remember it because it went that fast,” Farraway says of her maiden ring walk. “It was really cool, my boyfriend’s sister was boxing at the time, I had watched her have a few fights, and I wanted to have a go as well. We fought on the same night. So it was a really good energy. I don’t remember too much about it because it was my first fight and I was so nervous.”

Farraway is now twenty-seven fights in. A love affair that satisfies in many ways. “Doing something that scares me,” Farraway replied when I asked what the attraction of boxing was to her. “I hadn’t done any sports, and I hadn’t really pushed myself before. Doing something that was scary and hard is what made me want to keep boxing. I was so comfortable in my life, and having that adrenaline rush just made me want to keep doing it.”

Those twenty-seven fights have already brought plenty of success. “A few weeks ago, I won gold at the Tammer tournament in Finland,” Farraway relayed to me. “That was a pretty big stepping stone for me. I won at the Australian selection tournament earlier this year against Eve Bryson, who is a really good amateur with a good record. We prepared well for that fight, and that was another big achievement for me.”

The Commonwealth Games will take place in Glasgow next year, and Farraway intends to be in Scotland. “The Commonwealth Games are definitely a target for next year. We have the nationals in a couple of weeks. Australia is taking the top four in each weight division to the trials at the beginning of next year. We should get to the trails and then push hard there and see how that goes because it is a really big goal of mine to go to the Commonwealth Games.”

“Ciara Storch, who is also from Queensland,” Farraway added when I asked who her main rival is for a place on the Australian team. “Ciara is very well known, and she is pretty much the main girl I have to beat. So I have to beat her at the nationals first.”

If Farraway gets her way, a trip to Glasgow will be followed by a visit to Los Angeles in three years time. “I really want to go to the Olympics. I have wanted to for a while now. We almost went pro at the beginning of this year, so that Olympic goal kind of disappeared because I was going to turn professional. We were not getting many fights, but we decided to keep trying, so it’s become a big goal again now. But it is obviously still three years away. We have to see how everything goes and if I want to stay in the amateurs, which I think I do. You have to go with the flow because things may change. But I do want to get to the Olympics.”

With a desire to test the waters in the professional ranks, Farraway could be competing as an amateur and in the paid ranks at the same time. “You can do both, but I see them as two different sports,” Farraway says. “They are completely different to each other. I definitely want to go pro; that has always been my main goal. I keep pushing in the amateurs, so all these other goals have now popped up. I do want to go pro, but I am not sure when. But that is the end goal.”

Amber Farraway is impressive in many ways. There are obvious targets, both in the short and long term. But the Queensland native is also balanced in her ambitions. A fighter who just wants to see how far her career takes her. “I want to go as far as I can, and when I am done, I am done.”