Mckenzie Wright has a new coach and new plan, with the L.A. 2028 Games in her sights

Mckenzie Wright has some unfinished business.

The St. Davids amateur boxer, who narrowly missed out on representing Canada at the 2024 Paris Olympics, isn’t giving up.

If anything, she is more motivated and focused than ever — and now has her sights set on Los Angeles and the 2028 Games.

Fresh from scoring a bronze medal in June at the World Boxing Challenge in the Czech Republic, Wright is at the gym almost every day, training and developing her skills, still hoping to make her Olympic dream a reality.

She almost made it last year, losing some close and controversial decisions, including one to eventual Paris bronze medallist Aira Villegas of the Philippines.

But that was then. “With the way things ended last (Olympics) cycle, with it being that close so many times, I can’t leave it like that. I have to right those wrongs,” Wright says in an interview.

“I think it would be unfair to myself to leave it like that.”

It was remarkable that she was so close to making it to the Olympics especially since she came to the process late.

She turned 35 in May, and only returned to competitive boxing in 2023, barely 18 months ahead of the Paris Games.

She had stepped away from fighting for five years and returned to quickly become a national champion and top-level international fighter — something almost unheard of in elite competition.

“When I came in trying to qualify last year, I came back from a five-year hiatus, and I went straight into qualifying tournaments.”

She now sees that period as building years, allowing her to improve, get stronger and mature.

“The way I look at it, too, is OK, I’m older, but that means I have more experience. So, with the five-year break that was five years less damage to my body,” Wright says.

“I always say, ‘Yeah, I’m 35 but I’m only 30 in boxing years’ ” thanks to her years away from the sport.

After narrowly missing out last June in her final attempt in Thailand to qualify for Paris, she took the summer off.

Incredibly fit and strong, Wright is a lean, mean fighting machine and competes in the 51-kilogram weight class. That’s a maximum of 112 pounds.

She split with coach Jesse Sallows of City Boxing Club in Niagara Falls and since last November has been under the tutelage of Faisal Ahmadi — “Coach Sal” — from Niagara Falls, N.Y.

While she’s thankful for her time under Sallows, she says she was ready to move on. “I outgrew the gym” and needed different coaching.

She says she is getting that with Ahmadi while also travelling to Montreal a couple of times a month to train under Canada’s national team coaches.

“It’s higher-level training. He has been a fantastic coach for me in the short time that we’ve worked together and the attention that he gives me as an athlete, it’s amazing.”

“It’s the perfect match for me.”

Coupled with the national coaches from the Olympic Training Centre in Montreal, “I’m a whole new fighter right now. And it’s only the beginning.”

“I call myself Mckenzie 2.0 now, because I don’t even recognize the fighter who started the (Paris Olympic) qualification. I’ve completely transformed.”

Five times each week she makes the 10-minute drive over the border to work out with Ahmadi. On Fridays she trains on her own and Sundays are her day to rest and recover.

She recognizes that, with Donald Trump’s presidency, many are choosing not to cross the border — and hopes people won’t judge her harshly for the choice she has made.

Because it is working and ultimately her goal is to do her country proud internationally.

She follows a strict training regimen and is pleased with her development.

So is her coach.

“Since we started working together, her progress has been incredible,” Ahmadi tells The Lake Report.

“We’ve really dialled in on her defence — trusting her head movement, staying sharp with counters — and it’s paying off,” he adds.

“She’s naturally explosive and fast, so we’re building everything around maximizing those strengths.”

Wright says she’s grown as an athlete as a result.

In the ring, “my ability to adjust, the way I read things, implementing my own strategies, my mindset is a lot clearer now.”

“My defence has improved a lot. I’m picking shots better and my footwork has been off the charts. That’s something we’ve really focused on since I started working with Coach Sal.”

Sports psychologists also have helped her stay focused and reframe her mindset going into fights.

“Every time I get in the ring with the elite fighters, win or lose, I come out better. I’m just so much better than I used to be,” Wright says.

“And being under higher-level coaches, we’re working on the right things. We’re practising the right things every single day and I’m executing them in the ring.”

She graduated from Niagara College’s nursing program last year and works part-time as a nurse at a cosmetic medical clinic in Niagara Falls.

That job, and the small amount of funding she receives through Sport Canada for being a carded, national team athlete, helps cover some of her training costs. But not nearly all of it.

Canadians love their athletes to be successful on the international stage, but government funding for amateur competitors is generally less than $2,000 a month.

“It becomes a matter of like the chicken and the egg,” Wright notes.

“What comes first? How do you get results if there’s no funding? But then you don’t fund because there’s no results?”

It’s an age-old conundrum that many top Canadian athletes have had to wrestle with. Often only the most famous, high-profile athletes, including those in track or swimming, have outside sponsorship to help them train and compete.

Still, Wright is ready to give her all for Canada.

She’s been successful in several tournaments in recent months, including bouts against fighters from Puerto Rico and Alberta.

With the bronze medal from her Czech sojourn under her belt, and golden performances in the national championships last November and at a tournament in the Dominican Republic in February, next on her fight card is the world championships in Liverpool this September.

“All these tournaments that I’ve been doing have been helping with my preparation for that,” she says.

After England, there’s the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Scotland and then Olympic qualification starts in 2027 with the Pan American Games in Peru.

Unlike the last Olympic cycle, she has a head start. And she’s plunging into it with confidence and a positive attitude.

In the past she feels perhaps she was a little bit too focused on results, rather than her development as a boxer.

“You have to put your focus on the process,” she says emphatically. “Trust the process” and things will work out.

“I learned a lot of lessons in the last two years. I think that one day if you look up the word perseverance in the dictionary, you’re going to find my face beside it,” she jokes.

“There’s so much adversity that I keep getting faced with, but I keep pushing through it. That’s kind of what makes someone a champion.”