Louisiana’s boxing ‘Golden Girl’ knocked out of Olympics due to rules change

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Alexis Lavarine is an incredible basketball participant. Actually, she not too long ago signed a full scholarship to attend Louisiana Faculty this fall. “I am actually excited to start out a brand new chapter,” Lavarine stated. The highschool scholar is really turning the web page as a result of basketball wasn’t her past love. Boxing was. “I’ve at all times needed to be within the Olympics,” Lavarine stated.After successful six nationwide championships and three world titles in her age division, she was invited to maneuver to Colorado to work with Workforce USA boxing. Whereas males’s boxing has been an Olympic medal sport since 1904, girls’s boxing is among the newer occasions — it turned a medal sport on the London video games in 2012.”I simply really feel prefer it’s an honor to put on these three letters on my jersey,” Lavarine stated.As soon as a powerful candidate to characterize her nation and go for gold on the Tokyo video games, Lavarine has been knocked out of Olympic consideration resulting from a rule change. Skilled — not simply novice — boxers can now compete within the Olympics, ensuing within the minimal age of fighters being raised from 17 to 19 – so Lavarine is not sufficiently old for the video games this summer season. “I simply keep in mind like feeling devastated…that every one my onerous work, it was identical to, being taken away from me,” she stated.That information, coupled with the pandemic, resulted within the final 12 months being onerous for Lavarine. “I sort of struggled with that, however I used basketball to sort of choose me up and I began doing basketball full time and boxing part-time,” she stated.So now it is left-handed layups, as a substitute of left-handed hooks — however Lavarine says a return to the boxing ring is feasible. “You by no means know what the longer term holds,” she stated. “I really feel like I ought to hold coaching and perhaps I will go professional after faculty. I will nonetheless be younger after I graduate in order that’s nonetheless an choice for me.”

Alexis Lavarine is an incredible basketball participant.

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Actually, she not too long ago signed a full scholarship to attend Louisiana Faculty this fall.

“I am actually excited to start out a brand new chapter,” Lavarine stated.

The highschool scholar is really turning the web page as a result of basketball wasn’t her past love.

Boxing was.

“I’ve at all times needed to be within the Olympics,” Lavarine stated.

After successful six nationwide championships and three world titles in her age division, she was invited to maneuver to Colorado to work with Workforce USA boxing.

Whereas males’s boxing has been an Olympic medal sport since 1904, girls’s boxing is among the newer occasions — it turned a medal sport on the London video games in 2012.

“I simply really feel prefer it’s an honor to put on these three letters on my jersey,” Lavarine stated.

As soon as a powerful candidate to characterize her nation and go for gold on the Tokyo video games, Lavarine has been knocked out of Olympic consideration resulting from a rule change.

Skilled — not simply novice — boxers can now compete within the Olympics, ensuing within the minimal age of fighters being raised from 17 to 19 – so Lavarine is not sufficiently old for the video games this summer season.

“I simply keep in mind like feeling devastated…that every one my onerous work, it was identical to, being taken away from me,” she stated.

That information, coupled with the pandemic, resulted within the final 12 months being onerous for Lavarine.

“I sort of struggled with that, however I used basketball to sort of choose me up and I began doing basketball full time and boxing part-time,” she stated.

So now it is left-handed layups, as a substitute of left-handed hooks — however Lavarine says a return to the boxing ring is feasible.

“You by no means know what the longer term holds,” she stated. “I really feel like I ought to hold coaching and perhaps I will go professional after faculty. I will nonetheless be younger after I graduate in order that’s nonetheless an choice for me.”

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