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Mary Spencer (right), of Canada, punches Jinzi Li (left), of China, during their women's 75kg boxing match at the London 2012 Olympics
By Jennifer Robinson
Canadian boxer Mary Spencer helped celebrate the start of the
TO2015 IGNITE program in January 2013.
“I always said that I would keep on boxing until the day I came home after a competition and on the airplane I was not journaling about what I needed to do differently,” she says in a reflective mood several months later.
“When I got to the point where I’d just come home and be excited to relax, see people and enjoy the victory — that’s when I felt like I should probably retire. I imagined that’s how I’d feel coming home from London … but, obviously, that didn’t happen.
“Instead, I was on the plane thinking I couldn’t wait to get back to the gym …and that’s when I knew, ‘I’m still in this. I still have that fire. I still have that desire to get better.’”
A trailblazer in the sport — and once a gym-class failure — the 28-year-old Windsor, Ontario-based boxer is a nine-time Canadian, three-time world and five-time Pan American champion.
In 2011, she was also one of the first women to win gold in boxing’s debut at the Pan Am Games. She plans on defending that title when the Games come to Toronto in 2015 and make good on her Olympic dreams in Rio 12 months later.
“I am so excited about competing at home it’s not even funny,” says the soft spoken, almost six-foot-tall pugilist in an early morning phone call from Hamilton.
Oshawa, where Pan Am boxing will be held, is familiar territory for Spencer, who’s trained at the city’s famous Motor City Boxing Club on several occasions. Grassroots support for boxing is strong in the city, which has produced several well-known fighters, including “Lethal” Lindsay Garbatt, one of the world’s top pro female boxers.
“I know there’s a lot of support and boxers in Oshawa who have helped me get better and I’m sure will continue to do so in the time leading up to these competitions. I’m going to feel right at home in Oshawa!” says Spencer.
The confidence comes after a tough year for Spencer; 2012 seemed to sucker punch her. The trio of high-profile losses all started with her loss to 17-year-old wunderkind Claressa Shields in the final of the Women’s Elite Continental Boxing Championships in Cornwall, Ontario. The high school student from Flint, Michigan, took Olympic gold in London a few months later.
Spencer later lost in the opening bout of the 2012 world championships to Sweden’s Anna Rosalie Laurell, forcing her to rely on a wild card spot for the Olympic Games. And then, there was the early exit in London.
Able to laugh off the sting of the losses now, Spencer says the “noise” of outside expectations has dimmed as a result, freeing her to focus on a brutal 30-hour weekly training schedule for the next four years with her longtime coach Charlie Stewart at the Windsor Amateur Boxing Club.
Indeed, she almost seems to relish the opportunity to be the underdog in the ring — mind you, one with a knock-you-senseless reach propelled by a renewed sense of purpose.
“There’s a huge difference in the way that I feel and am able to train. I realize it now that the pressure is off,” Spencer admits. “Everything was new in the last few years. It was the first time [for women’s boxing] at the Pan Am Games, it was the first time [for women’s boxing] at the Olympics. There were a lot of firsts. Nothing is new anymore and that’s changing the mentality of how we train.
“I won’t say the joy went away but it definitely changed. Now it’s definitely gone back to the roots of just enjoying the sport [and] enjoying the pleasure of competition.”
Since 1997 when the International Boxing Association (AIBA) held its first official tournament for female boxers, the sport has exploded in popularity. More than 300 fighters from 70 countries took part in the 2012 world championships in the run-up to the sport’s Olympic debut. Competition is fierce, especially with only three weight divisions. In 2014, this biennial competition will be held in Canada for the first time, although the exact location hasn’t been confirmed. Toronto is in the running, as are Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Quebec City.
“If this is the last stop for me before the Olympics, I think it’ll be incredible to have two major competitions — the world championships and the Pan Am Games — here at home where my friends and family can come and watch,” Spencer says.
But when talk turns to the action inside the ring, she becomes more guarded in her answers, avoiding speaking the names of her biggest competitors aloud — perhaps in a moment of athletic superstition. The boxers with bull’s-eyes on their backs for her are Shields (“that would be no. 1”), who beat her in a rematch in Michigan in February of this year, and current 75-kilogram world champion Savannah Marshall of England (“that would be no. 2”).
Under AIBA rule changes announced in April 2013, which raised the fighting age to 19 and capped it at 40 for elite competitors, Shields is no longer old enough to compete in the elite category at championships governed by AIBA rules, which means a Spencer-Shields rematch won’t happen anytime soon where a title is on the line.
If Shields stays in the game, she’ll be of age to compete again against the Canadian after she turns 19 in March 2014, meaning Toronto and Rio both hold the possibility of a gold-medal showdown. But 12 months shut out of fighting the best boxers around won’t be easy for Shields. It may very well be a boon for Spencer.
Oddly enough, the two fighters have a lot in common.
Both share similar childhoods growing up in hardscrabble, blue collar auto manufacturing hubs (Flint and Windsor) where Spencer collected quarters for a new pair of sneakers in a grocery store parking lot and Shields is struggling to find endorsements despite her gold-medal win. And, of course, both are determined to win.
But where Shields seems easily distracted in recent interviews — as a teenager who’s shot to the the top so quickly would no doubt be — an older and more experienced Spencer is über disciplined and doesn’t seem to have hobbies; none come to mind when she’s asked. Instead, the little time when she’s not in the ring is spent as a role model with Motivate Canada doing sport and empowerment work with First Nations teens in Ontario.
“I try to do that as much as possible,” says Spencer, who is proud of her Ojibway heritage and sees great untapped potential in grooming future Aboriginal athletes. “It’s enjoyable for me and it’s a good payoff because I feel like I’m really making a difference.
“I’m working with kids who are interested in sport but I’m also working with those who don’t realize they have any interests at all, who spend most of their time playing video games or getting into trouble.”
Much like Spencer before coach Stewart and boxing gave her focus. It’s a sport that’s seen her travel the world. Recently, she’s trained and fought in France and Poland. Next up are the 2013 Continental Championships in Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela, from May 15 to 20 and the Canadian nationals this fall.
And after 2016? Well, Spencer says she may consider turning pro but admits “it does not get me excited.”
“You know people try professional boxing when they want to start making money or being flashy,” she says. “But I just love going and competing and representing my country, that’s what makes the sport fun for me.”
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