Tyla McDonald and Caitlin Parker qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games
Two boxers from the same gym in Melbourne’s south east have qualified for the 2024 Olympics, rewriting a number of records in the process. See their story.
South East
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A small gym in Melbourne’s south east is punching well above its weight.
Peninsula Boxing, located on the Mornington Peninsula, has rewritten record books over the past week while the best boxers in the country battled it out for a ticket to the 2024 Olympic Games.
Tyla McDonald and Caitlin Parker, who both train out of Peninsula Boxing, punched their ticket to the Paris Games, becoming the first pair out of the same gym to qualify for the same games.
Parker, 27, will take a second record with her next July too, as no female boxer has ever been to two Olympic Games.
McDonald and Parker’s trainer, Marcos Amado, said the achievement is yet to sink in.
“It’s all a little bit surreal,” he said.
“It’s borderline impossible to get one athlete to qualify let alone two.”
Parker was originally from Western Australia but moved to the Mornington Peninsula after the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
McDonald, 20, meanwhile, has trained out of Peninsula Boxing for over a decade.
Amado said the pair stood out from other athletes the moment he saw them.
“I could tell straight away, it’s very cliché, but I could tell straight away that she (McDonald at age 10) was something special,” he said.
“Comparatively to other girls her age and other athletes her age, her drive and determination stood out.
“The two of them are the two most coachable athletes I have had; Caitlin is the most experienced male or female boxer Australia has but she’s never above learning.
“Neither of them are complacent, good enough is never good enough.”
While the pair has already achieved a piece of history by just earning a position on the Olympic team, Amado is “quietly confident” there’s further history in store.
“I’m over the moon, for a little gym out on the Peninsula, so isolated from everyone, to produce two athletes going to the same games – it’s incredible,” he said.
“It hasn’t sunk in yet.
“No female boxer has ever won a medal – I am quietly confident they can be the first two.”