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SOUTH JORDAN — The Rio Olympics are less than a month away, but for one Utah mother, her ambitious goal of reaching the 2020 Olympics as a boxer is just beginning.
Whitney Gomez officially entered the amateur boxing world in February and is doing what she can to climb the ladder, despite multiple odds against her from age to experience.
Then, of course, there’s the fact that she’s the mother of three children: Kingston, Sienna and Gemma — the oldest of the bunch being 9 years old. She’s also a fitness trainer with 12 clients. Those bring other challenges as well; however, it hasn’t stopped her from chasing a lifelong dream of hers.
“Ever since I was little, I saw myself competing in the Olympics,” Gomez said. “If boxing is the route, then that’s what I want to do. I feel like I have the potential to get there.”
Gomez’s journey to boxing is a different one than most others in the sport. She grew up in swimming and played water polo in college. She and her husband, Martel, got married and started a family.
During that time, Gomez kept herself in an athletic mindset as a fitness trainer and instructor. By 2015, that merged into boxing and she was hooked the more she learned.
Gomez stepped into the ring for the first time in February and won, just six weeks after starting training with her first boxing coach. However, through what Gomez said she has experienced so far, Utah isn’t necessarily a women’s boxing hub. So a second fight didn’t happen until June.
Gomez then set her focus to the prestigious National Women’s Golden Gloves tournament in Florida earlier this month — her first tournament as a boxer. Since she didn’t have enough fights under her belt, she fought in the novice class.
“It was a good learning experience,” she said, noting that the fighters in the tournament were “outstanding and phenomenal athletes.”
Her first test ended with pair of decision losses. Shaken, but not deterred, Gomez said she hopes to use that experience to help launch her to a better result in next year’s tournament, where she hopes to also fight in a different category.
“I know I took a lot back from it to work on the next year, so that next year I can fight in the Elite category and hopefully do a lot better.”
Ultimately the goal is heading to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
However, balancing boxing with her other responsibilities can limit valuable time on both ends.
“It’s all just a lot of hard work and training, and more tournaments,” Gomez said. “I need to get involved in more tournaments, which is kind of tricky because financially that’s tricky … not only that, I have three kids, a husband, and I train 12 clients and teach several fitness classes every week.”
Having those responsibilities have led to a mixed bag of reactions from the boxing community, Gomez said. Most reactions are positive, but some are not. She’s also entering a sport where many of her competitors have trained nearly their whole lives and are younger than her.
She's also struggled to find the perfect boxing coach while she trains. While she currently trains at CatchWeight Fitness and Boxing in Riverton, she has had three coaches already due to various reasons.
However, Gomez said she’s learned to feed off both sides.
“Any time I get that negativity and people telling me that I can’t do it, it’s almost like, ‘I’ll show you I can do this,’” she said. “It might be a long road for me. I might have some setbacks and I might have some other things — obstacles that other people don’t have to do.”
One major benefit, though, is having her family in the corner with her. Gomez said that Martel has been “very supportive” of her desire to box. He even made the trip with her to Florida for her first tournament.
Her children have also become some of her biggest fans. That has led to an inadvertent love for exercise.
“It’s been cool over the past year just to see my kids even starting to do a little fitness more and understand the importance of an active lifestyle and being healthy, and happy that way,” she said.
Despite balancing a busy schedule, Gomez said a family day is commonly set if she feels too much attention is focused on her work and her boxing.
Having her family behind her and having a relentless mindset is what Gomez said she focuses on in the process of trying to reach her lifelong dream.
It's a long journey if Gomez reaches the 2020 Olympics, but Gomez said she's willing to put in the work.
“If you have the drive and the passion, if you are willing to put in the work and the time and the effort and the blood — there’s a lot of blood in boxing — the sweat and sometimes tears, I feel like you can do anything you want,” she said. “If you have a goal, you have a dream, don’t let other people crush your dreams because they’re your dreams.”
