The Tokyo Olympics were supposed to be Mandy Bujold’s swan song, a capstone to the career of one of Canada’s best amateur boxers. Bujold, a 33-year old flyweight, has won 11 Canadian national championships, two Pan American Games titles, and a trip to the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016.
Bujold’s bid for an Olympic medal before retiring from boxing now appears in jeopardy, undone by the coronavirus pandemic and ad hoc qualification rules that effectively penalized Bujold for having had a child.
Last month, after the qualifying tournament in Buenos Aires for boxers from the Americas was canceled because of the pandemic, the International Olympic Committee’s Boxing Task Force said boxers from North and South American countries would qualify for Tokyo based on their rankings at three tournaments held in 2018 and 2019.