Mandy Bujold, the boxing mother in a legal fight to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics
The Canadian, who missed the rearranged qualification window due to maternity leave, is taking her case to Court of Arbitration for Sport
9 May 2021 • 8:30am
Mandy Bujold is the only female boxer to win back-to-back titles at the Pan American Games
Credit: SHUTTERSTOCK
For those seeking concrete proof that female athletes still face battles in trying to reconcile a sporting career with motherhood, look no further than boxer Mandy Bujold.
Canada’s 11-time national flyweight champion had meticulously planned her pregnancy in November 2018, when she gave birth to her daughter. But never did she envisage it would seriously hamper her chances of competing at the Tokyo Olympics more than 2½ years later.
TORONTO (AP) Mandy Bujold would have preferred fighting this battle in the ring. Instead, the Tokyo Olympics fate for Canada’s best boxer lies in the hands of the Court of Arbitration for Sport after her qualifying tournament was scrapped due to the pandemic.
KITCHENER Coming off maternity leave and a returning to international competition, Kitchener, Ont., boxer Mandy Bujold, is in the biggest fight of her career. She hopes to represent Canada at the summer Olympics in Tokyo, but because of the pandemic, the International Boxing Task Force (BTF) decided to use the 2018 rankings to determine eligibility – a year Bujold was off on maternity leave. “When they re creating criteria, especially at the highest level, thinking about pregnancy and post-partum for women should be a given,” said Bujold. Tuesday night, she learned the International Olympic Committee (IOC) denied her appeal of the qualifying rules.
Mandy Bujold's appeal to the International Olympic Committee for a berth in the Tokyo Games has been denied, and so she will take her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Bujold and her lawyer Sylvie Rodrigue were denied their appeal to the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday, leaving the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne her last chance to box in what would be her final Games. I had been hopeful (about the IOC s decision), Bujold said Wednesday morning. But they did not even address the issues in our letter, which is really unfortunate, right? You think of the Olympics and the principles of Olympism, you think about fairness, you think about sportsmanship, you think about all these things that make the Olympics what they are, and make me proud to be an Olympian and to get this response was really tough.