THUNDER BAY -- Mary Spencer said she knew the first day she walked into the gym that boxing was going to play a big part in her life.
Little did the Wiarton, Ont.-born Spencer know it would make her a world champion and take her to the Olympic Games.
“Day 1 I knew it was something different, something special,” said the 30-year-old Ojibway athlete, who spoke to students Wednesday at Confederation College about her experience and perseverance in the once male-dominated sport.
“When my coach (Charlie Stewart) said if you come and train every day for a year I’ll make you a Canadian champion, those words really spoke to me and resonated with me. That day I remember thinking I’m going to do whatever it takes to reach this goal.
“That thought, that feeling, that mindset is what won my first Canadian championship, what won my first world championship.”
Spencer, originally from Cape Croker First Nation, said she travels the country telling her tale because she thinks Canadians of all age can benefit from her rise to success and relate to how she got there.
“I just share the lessons I’ve learned through them, not just the lessons I’ve learned competing, but talking about the things that I’m able to carry with me on a daily basis. I shared stories about having a positive attitude and I shared stories about persevering when things don’t look like they’re going to turn out too well.”
Spencer, the first Aboriginal woman to compete in boxing at the Olympic Games, boasts a long list of accomplishments.
Within three years of taking up the sport in 2002 she was a world champion, taking the 66-kilogram title, a feat she replicated three years later, in 2008. In 2010 she moved up to the middleweight division and captured the world championship for a third time.
She’s won Canadian titles every year since 2004, is a four-time Pan-American Games champion and was a heavy favourite at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, where she had to settle for fifth.
The Olympic loss stung. But Spencer isn’t one to dwell on past failures. It explains the motto displayed on her Team Canada profile: “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do.”
Spencer will return to the ring this summer, competing for Canada at the Pan-American Games, being staged in Toronto.
Fighting at home will be incredible, she said.
“You’ve got the support of people you’ve never met before because we share a common thing, that we’re Canadians. So that will be an absolutely amazing thing that’s going to happen this summer.”
Of course her eyes are on Rio de Janiero in 2016, where she’s hoping for a little Olympic redemption.
“I left the Olympics in 2012 not feeling like I had shown the best version of me. So I have that to look forward to, making this comeback, making this a go and almost redeeming myself,” she said.
