From office job to Games, Australian Echegaray proud of ‘tremendous feat’

PARIS: Tiana Echegaray was eliminated from the Paris Olympics following a loss to Turkiye’s Hatice Akbas on Tuesday, but the Australian said she is still proud of herself for making it this far in such a short space of time.Until 2019, the 30-year-old worked an office job for a music rights company, before quitting and taking up boxing as a way to keep fit."I was just working a pretty mediocre 9-5 job for the majority of my life, and it felt really meaningless. Everything that I was doing was just going to the abyss and having no value or benefit to anyone in my life,” bantamweight Echegaray said."I decided to do something different and do a full 360 of my life. I started boxing for fitness and it felt good to move, to have exercise is really an incredible thing. I met some people in boxing, particularly women, who just looked really badass, like hitting the bag. I was just watching them and I thought, there’s obviously so much more to this sport,” Echegaray said."I didn’t grow up dreaming of going to the Olympics. I started boxing really late. I had my first fight in 2021, and to even make it to the Olympics is a tremendous feat."I’m so proud of myself for making it this far, and just being here, representing myself, my family, my coaches, my gym.”