Kaye Scott has won a world championship silver medal and two Commonwealth Games medals; she participated in the first sanctioned bout in NSW after the state government legalised female boxing in 2008; she sold bars of chocolate to fund her first overseas campaign; she overcame discrimination in the early days of her career; her parents hoped her love of boxing was simply a passing dalliance; she captained Australia’s 2016 Commonwealth Games Boxing Team – male and female – because officials recognised her as a leader, and she’s put herself through enough pain to have paid three lifetime’s worth of boxing dues . . .

Despite all of that, the New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) scholarship holder has headed to the 2023 Australian Elite Championships and Pacific Games Qualification Event which starts in Perth tomorrow, knowing her biggest dream – an Olympic Games berth – is at stake.

Scott must win her 66kg category – for which she has had to lose weight under a strictly monitored diet to compete after her 70kg weight class was scrapped as an Olympic event – to progress to November’s Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands. The Games double as the Olympic qualifying event, and with her lifetime’s goal on the line, Scott didn’t attempt to hide the magnitude of having to perform in Perth.

“My whole career has come down to going to the Olympics,” she said. “It’s been a dream of mine for a long time, and I know it’s going to happen. I have a strong deep seeded belief in myself . . . more than ever . . . and I know it’s in my destiny and within my capabilities.

“All I have to do is tick off the boxes, and this week in Perth is the first serious box that needs to be ticked off for me to go in the right direction and make it happen.”

Scott, who regularly trains in the NSWIS gym under the guidance of the Institute’s strength and conditioning coach Billy Macklin, said she’s drawing upon her experience to cope with the pressure and expectations.

“I’m treating this like any competition,” she said. “It involves the mental side of things as well as the physical side and I think I have  both of them covered. I’ve been to multiple training camps since the world championships.

“I had a big international camp in Italy where I sparred some of the top girls, including two who have already qualified for the Olympics because their qualifiers have happened. We also had a domestic camp in Brisbane with the national squad.

“More recently we had a camp in Thailand where I was pitted against some great Thai girls, including a few who were at my weight division and those who were below. It was  helpful because it allowed for me to work on my speed as I drop down to this weight class.”

“I’m physically ready to go, but there is a lot of serious emotions that come into it. You also have to bring you’re ‘A’ game and perform.

“But that’s elite sport – competitive sport – and I’ve been around that for a long time. It’s just finding the continuum that works where you’re heightened, not too high and not too low.”

Daniel Lane, NSWIS

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