Caitlin Parker and Charlie Senior carry the team’s hopes – and can now dream of winning the country’s first boxing gold during the 2024 Games
Towards the end of the Tokyo Olympics, Australia’s equal best in terms of gold medals, then-Australian Institute of Sport director Peter Conde was asked about the success he had helped oversee. As a result of the pandemic, Conde was 8,000 kilometres away in Canberra; he had not travelled to Tokyo. But that gave him the distance and perspective to make an astute observation.
While all eyes were on the Dolphins’ golden form in the pool, a long-overdue gold medal for Jess Fox or success in newly-introduced sports like surfing and BMX freestyle, Conde pointed to a lone bronze medal in boxing, a sport first introduced to the Olympic program in 1904.