“We basically had a meeting about what the pathway was going to look like if you wanted to go to the Olympics and I was like ‘how am I even in this conversation right now? What do you mean?’. I never thought about the Olympics, I was watching them in lockdown,” Echegaray said.

“It was pretty crazy because I was like, ‘oh shit, this is where it’s leading me’. I did not see it all.”

Echegaray has sacrificed a lot to make the Olympics. She trained full-time and relied on sponsorship from local businesses, friends and family to help support her travel and training costs while competing. She has also battled injuries, including scratched corneas on her eyes from punches that left her unable to lie down without feeling like she was blinking slowly through a sackful of sand and grit.

In November, Echegaray – who is of Cook Islands heritage – made the Olympics after winning gold in the Pacific Games, winning a unanimous points decision over Tonga’s Hainite Kayla Tuitupou in the women’s 54kg division.

“It was probably some of the biggest relief I’ve ever felt in my life, honestly, just because I’d worked so hard for everything up to that moment, that whole year,” Echegaray said.

“I’ve just been through so much and in terms of ups and downs in the sport, like winning and losing, and some days you feel like on top of the world the next day, you just feel like shit, you’re just getting bashed, it’s such a rollercoaster to try and manage. I just felt so incredibly happy and just had relief, like I did what I said I was going to do”

Echegaray last month flew to Colorado Springs in the United States to train and compete with her 11 teammates – including five other women, Australia’s biggest Olympic female boxing contingent to date. She knows that she is fighting for something bigger than personal glory.

“It becomes bigger than yourself because you start impacting the people around you and I didn’t even think that that would be the case because initially I was just working on myself to make myself feel better,” Echegaray said.

“Now I start to see the impact on the people around me and then it’s gotten to the point where now it’s not even about me, it feels like I just want to make everyone else proud and particularly my family, my friends, my coach. We’ve all worked so hard to be where we are.

“It’s just like everyone’s riding the wave with me and I’m trying to get on the podium, not just for me, but for everyone behind me.”

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Echegaray is fully focused on her Olympic dream, but is resolute that this will be her first and last time competing in the Games. She wants to stay involved in boxing, not as a professional fighter, but instead working in the community that initially attracted her to the sport.

“I have this small little window to try and do as much as I can and I’m really just fully committed to it and I’m like, ‘this is it, I’m not going to go to the Olympics again’,” Echegaray said.

“I’m so glad I made that choice (to commit). I’d be so unhappy to still be sitting on my arse all day and typing away on a computer.

“It’s kind of scary thinking about what I’m going to do after but it’s also not; I feel like I’m still going to be involved in the sport. I’m still going to do coaching and there’s so much you can do on the community level. It really impacts people’s lives.”

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