Paris 2024: Harry Garside’s message on a bottle to ward off social media trolls ahead of tilt at Olympic gold

Two sentences. Every time Harry Garside takes a sip he is reminded of what he has achieved and the drive to achieve more in Paris.

Harry Garside has felt the trauma of searing social-media abuse but it is a soothing motto, written on his water bottle, that is keeping him mentally secure in his mission to win gold at Paris.

Garside left Australia a fortnight ago to ramp-up preparations for his second Olympics after making history for Australian boxing with his bronze-medal effort at Tokyo three years ago.

But to steal a line from Australian Test cricket legend Steve Waugh, Garside is not satisfied. He wants more. Bronze is great. Gold is even better.

It’s why Garside was motivated to pen two phrases on sticking plaster and attach them to a water bottle he uses almost every minute of every day.

As he slogs it out at The Boxing Shop in Brisbane during Australia’s pre-Olympic camp, Garside briefly walks over and takes a swig. He looks at the bottle. Quietly, imperceptibly in his own head, the written words on the bottle tell him: “I am an Olympic Gold medallist. I am the man in the arena.”

Words of motivation for Harry Garside, right in front of his face. Picture: Peter Badel.

The latter is a line inspired by former US president Theodore Roosevelt; positive messaging to help him not only overcome the haters, but his own athletic self-doubts as he chases a feat no has achieved in Australia’s 100-year boxing history at the Olympics.

“It’s an affirmation thing,” says Garside, who turns 27 two days before the start of the Paris Games.

“I’m a weird mix of my parents. My dad is a roof tiler, he is super right wing, old fashioned, old-school, hard-working, I love that about him.

“Then my mum is a medium, super left wing.

“When it comes to spirituality or science or politics, left or right, I don’t really know where I stand, but someone said to me you are 70 per cent water and if you drink the words on your drink bottle, you consume it and become it.

“So when I drink, when I wake up, I’m telling myself, ‘I am a gold medallist and I’m the man in the arena’.

“There is always something inside you saying, ‘You can’t do this’, but I like to say there’s two wolves inside you.

“A good wolf that thinks you can win a gold medal … and a bad wolf that thinks, ‘I’m not worthy enough’.

“Which wolf is the loudest is the one you feed the most and I’m trying to feed the one that believes I can.”

Harry Garside says he posseses a mix of two wolves. Picture: Matt King/Getty Images for AOC

The good wolf was satiated in Tokyo. Then just turned 24, Garside became the first Australian boxer in 33 years since Grahame ‘Spike’ Cheney to win an Olympic medal after reaching the semi-finals.

Garside won just Australia’s fifth boxing Olympic medal. His star exploded. With his good looks, charisma and chutzpah, he became a household name, and perfectly framed for the global tentacles of new-world social media.

But the former plumber who struggled to make ends meet soon learned the price of fame. There was the fiscal upside of going on the hit show I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! in 2023. He finished runner-up. But there was also the dark side. The bad wolf was being fed.

“Before the last Olympics, no-one knew who I was and no-one cared,” he said.

“It’s really interesting. After the last Olympics, I was on the biggest high. Social media was feeding my ego. You get all this validation and I got to a point where I was consumed by it.

Harry Garside with his bronze medal at the last Olympics in Tokyo. Picture: Buda Mendes/Getty Images

“I had the awareness to get someone to take over my social media because I don’t think it’s natural to have 100,000 people being able to comment on your life at any point in time.

“They don’t know who I am. I post and then I stay out of it and someone else looks after it for me.

“In reality, you get mostly positive comments, but even if you read 99 per cent positive comments about yourself, you start to think you’re a legend when you’re not. You’re just human.

“It’s about to stay grounded.

“Now on social media people can get at you and say things, so that’s part of what’s on my water bottle … Like Theodore Roosevelt says, I am the man in the arena.

“I’m the one who is getting in there and facing my fears. I’m facing the front of embarrassment … but also potentially getting that triumph.”

Garside is so desperate for gold he was prepared to chop his thumb off.

The razor-sharp lightweight fractured his thumb in March during combat with a Brazilian contingent at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra and there were fears the injury could wipe him out of the Olympics.

Garside underwent surgery and told the doctor to amputate his thumb if it meant a quicker recovery. But the doctor assured him he would be fine for Paris with all five digits. Now Garside is flying.

“The hand is going well. I feel amazing,” he said.

“I fractured my thumb in March, that was a while ago now.

“I had no punching for five weeks, but I feel now I’m starting to show some good form.

“It’s nice. Two months ago, it was getting in my head, I was getting frustrated thinking I can’t throw my hand, I want to be able to spar and punch, I’m not sharp, but I feel like I’m starting to show some form now.

“We still have time to get even better and by the time of the Olympics, I’ll be showing the best form I can.

“The reason I’ve come back for a second Olympics is because I feel I can win gold. As a kid, I wanted to win a gold medal, not a bronze medal, and that’s why I am back here having another roll of the dice.

“I just have to get in there and do the job. I am a man of my word and if I say to myself, I will win gold, I will try my f***ing hardest to do it.”