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Mike Coppinger, ESPN Boxing Insider
The U.S. Olympic boxing team will face the same daunting task that has eluded the team in the past four Olympic Games: winning the men’s gold medal.
Andre Ward was the last American man to win a gold medal at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Ward went on to have a Hall of Fame career as a pro athlete.
Jamal Harvey is widely considered the best hope to end a 20-year drought without an Olympic gold medal. The 21-year-old featherweight, along with four other members of the men’s and women’s boxing teams, are in Paris for the opening of the 2024 Summer Olympics on Friday.
“It’s really important to me to bring morale back to the U.S.,” Harvey told ESPN. “We haven’t won a gold medal in 20 years, so it’s my mission to get it done and bring excitement and bring attention back to U.S. boxing and get kids to see that and try harder and believe they can do it too.”
“And that’s really bigger than me. Even if I can’t do it, I’m just happy to be part of a team where my other teammates can do it and that I can be there to push them.”
Before the team left for Paris, undefeated two-division champion Claressa Shields visited the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., to offer words of encouragement to the team. Shields knows what to expect: She is the only American boxer since Ward to win two gold medals (in 2012 and 2016).
“The best advice I gave them was to let go of any doubts and believe in yourself 110 percent,” Shields, who will challenge Vanessa Joanis for the heavyweight title on Saturday in Detroit, told ESPN on Wednesday. She also screened her upcoming biopic “The Fire Inside” for the team.
“Believe in your training, believe in your effort, believe in your sacrifices and give it your all every match,” Shields said. “Fight every match like it’s a gold medal match, and that’s how you get there.”
Here are eight boxers hoping to bring home a gold medal for the USA.
male:
Jamal Harvey – Featherweight (125 lbs)
Harvey is the first American to win a gold medal at the World Amateur Championships since 2007.
His first Olympic bout will be against Brazil’s Luiz Gabriel Oliveria on July 31. Harvey took up boxing after playing in the same 7-on-7 football league as Caleb Williams, this year’s No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft, at Maryland. Their youth football coach, Darrell Davis, started a boxing gym, and Harvey traded in his shoulder pads for boxing gloves.
Like three-division world champion Terence Crawford, Harvey is a switch-hitter who can box in both the orthodox and southpaw stances.
Joshua Edwards – Super Heavyweight (over 203 lbs)
The 24-year-old Edwards is the first super heavyweight Olympian from Houston since George Foreman won gold at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
At 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, Edwards is often on the smaller side of the ropes in Paris. In March 2023, he lost a decision to Uzbek professional boxer Bakodir Yarolov, a 2020 gold medalist (one of many professional boxers competing in the Paris Olympics). Two months later, Edwards bounced back with a decision win over one of the gold medal favorites, Delicious Ollie of Great Britain.
Edwards is a gold medalist at the 2023 Pan American Games. His first Olympic fight will be against Diego Renzi of Italy on July 29. Tyrell Biggs is the last American super heavyweight to win an Olympic gold medal (1984).
Omari Jones – Welterweight (156 lbs)
Jones, 21, from Orlando, Florida, is an avid golfer who switched from karate to boxing at age 8 and is currently enrolled in a business program at Valencia College.
Jones won gold medals at the 2023 Gee Bee International Tournament and the 2023 Czech Republic Grand Prix. U.S. team coach Billy Walsh described Jones as “a very refined, classy boxer.”
Roscoe Hill – Flyweight (112 lbs)
Hill, 29, the oldest of the eight-man team, began his boxing training at Foreman’s gym in Houston — his father was a boxer who trained with Foreman under the tutelage of Hall of Famer Archie Moore.
“I’ve seen things [Foreman] “Seeing what Foreman was doing around us in the gym and how he was helping the younger kids, I thought, ‘I want to do what George Foreman is doing,'” Hill told the official Olympics website.
Hill won a silver medal at the 2021 AIBA World Championships.
woman:
Jennifer Lozano – Flyweight (110 lbs)
“La Traviesa” is the first Olympic boxer from Laredo, Texas. She started boxing as a way to develop self-defense skills against bullies. The 21-year-old Lozano spent her formative years in Texas and Mexico.
Walsh described Lozano as a “fighter with a lot of spirit and power,” after she qualified for the Olympics by placing second at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
Morrell McCain – Welterweight (146 lbs)
McCain, 29, is the first female Olympic boxer from Cleveland and served as an alternate in the 2021 Olympics.
McCain, who lost her brother after her first amateur boxing bout and was forced to step away from the ring, has won two National Golden Gloves gold medals.
Jajaira Gonzalez – Lightweight (132 lbs)
Gonzalez, 27, of Montclair, California, took a three-year break from boxing to improve his mental health after placing second at the 2016 Olympic Trials, returning in 2021 and finishing third at the 2023 Pan American Games to qualify for the Olympics.
Gonzalez is the sister of professional featherweight boxer Joete Gonzalez and has challenged for world titles three times, most recently against Luis Alberto Lopez in September.
Walsh called Gonzalez “the driving force behind our team.”
Alyssa Mendoza – Featherweight (125 lbs)
Mendoza, 20, from Caldwell, Idaho, is the youngest member of the U.S. team and is coached by her father, JR, who owns a boxing gym in Idaho. Mendoza began training at age 12 and her goal is to bring Idaho to prominence in the boxing world.
Mendoza is a southpaw nicknamed “The Wrecking Machine” and has won 38 of her 49 recorded amateur fights.
