Gonzalez Dreaming Of Gold In Paris After Successful Return To USA Boxing

Lightweight Jajaira Gonzalez might be the younger sister of professional boxers Joet and Jousce Gonzalez, but she wants to be viewed as a fighter in her own right rather than simply the fighters’ sister.

The 27-year-old Gonzalez is aiming to win gold as she heads to the Paris 2024 Olympics this summer, representing the United States. 

Joet, 30, is a former world-title challenger, while Jousce, 28, is an undefeated lightweight who has been inactive in recent times. The 27-year-old Jajaira is an Olympian, yet she thought she might be done with boxing by 2020. Suffering from burnout, she didn’t fight in the Olympic Trials in 2019.

“At first, it kind of did bother me, because I was thinking that I am my own person,” Gonzalez told BoxingScene. “At the end of the day, I like to think I only have myself. My dad did help me along the way and some of my brothers were encouraging me, but everything I had to go through to get here, it was all me.”

Gonzalez came back to boxing in 2021. She hadn’t competed at a national level since losing at the 2018 USA National Championships quarterfinals to Amelia Moore. She moved to Virginia, and began working a full-time job as a kickboxing instructor for the gym chain I Love Kickboxing. 

“I was sitting there bored one day scrolling through Instagram looking at USA Boxing and they were in Spain and I had always wanted to go to Spain,” Gonzalez recalled. “I should be there, I should be traveling the world doing what I love and I am sitting here working a regular job. That motivated me.”

After the pandemic, Gonzalez moved back to California and trained with her father, Jose Gonzalez, then won nationals in December. That got her on the USA Boxing team and allowed her to train in Colorado Springs. The return of Gonzalez to a prominent role in USA Boxing has been one of the big stories of the 2024 Olympic team.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Not a lot of people can say they are Olympians,” stated Gonzalez. “Being an Olympian is the goal, but it is not the main goal. I am only halfway there to my ultimate goal which is getting an Olympic gold medal.”

Gonzalez is not ruling out a potential second Olympic bid either, despite being yet to make her first in the upcoming Paris Games, which run from late July to early August.

“For some reason, I don’t know if it is just me, even with all I feel I wouldn’t still be fully satisfied with boxing being an Olympic gold medalist,” reflected Gonzalez. “I could see thinking to myself okay I got one, but could I get two?”

Of her 13 international medals, Gonzalez’s most meaningful came at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games. Gonzalez won bronze and punched her ticket to the Olympics. Her loss came in the quarter-finals to current IBF women’s lightweight world champion and 2020 Olympic silver medalist Beatriz Ferreira.