Mandy Bujold, the boxing mother in a legal fight to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics

For those seeking concrete proof that female athletes still face battles in trying to reconcile a sporting career with motherhood, look no further than boxer Mandy Bujold.

Canada’s 11-time national flyweight champion had meticulously planned her pregnancy in November 2018, when she gave birth to her daughter. But never did she envisage it would seriously hamper her chances of competing at the Tokyo Olympics more than 2½ years later.

Bujold, the only female boxer to win back-to-back titles at the Pan American Games, found herself catapulted to the periphery of her sport after the Americas Olympic qualifiers, scheduled for this month, were cancelled because of the pandemic.

It prompted the International Olympic Committee to draw up a new qualification process through ranking points – based on three events between 2018 and 2019 – all of which Bujold missed on maternity leave.

Having lost her appeal to the IOC, the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist has filed a legal challenge to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, arguing the process discriminates against pregnant and postpartum athletes.

“I’m not the first athlete to come back after having a baby and I’m not going to be the last,” Bujold says. “The IOC needs to take into consideration things like this. Selecting an 11-month period doesn’t really make sense, because you’re leaving out the women who were pregnant or postpartum.”

Sylvie Rodrigue, her lawyer, insists Bujold’s situation constitutes a human rights violation that even contradicts the Olympic Charter in its aim “to encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures, with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women”.

“In Canada, in the corporate world, if you take time off to have a child, you come back to the same position. You can’t be penalised for having a child,” says Bujold, who has received support from the Canadian Olympic Committee and Boxing Canada.

Notwithstanding the role Covid-19 has played in dragging the IOC into an unexpected equality row, Bujold’s story sounds alarmingly familiar in sport, a murky world where mothers are still too often marginalised.

In March, Lara Lugli, an Italian volleyball player, took her club to court after being sacked when she became pregnant in 2019, having been accused of breaching her contract by choosing to start a family. A month later, Lugli suffered a miscarriage.

Maternity rights have traditionally been a luxury for female athletes, although there has been progressive shift among some sporting bodies, with Fifa, the Women’s National Basketball Association and the Professional Triathlon Association all unveiling radical maternity reforms.

Bujold, who was ranked second before going on maternity leave, is calling on the IOC and its Olympic Boxing Task Force to implement pregnancy protection similar to that unveiled by the Women’s Tennis Association in 2018. The modified rules allow returning mothers to use their previous ranking and followed Serena Williams’s comeback after giving birth to her daughter, Olympia.

“When Serena came back and was ranked 453, everyone was like, ‘That’s ridiculous – look at her track record,’ ” says Bujold, who named her own daughter, Kate Olympia, after being inspired by the tennis icon. “That’s what we’re asking [the IOC] for right now – to look at my ranking that I had.”

The IOC said its qualification system was “based on transparent and non-discriminatory” principles, and added that changes were “communicated in a timely manner to all concerned stakeholders”.

But Bujold has highlighted what she believes is an inconsistency in the IOC’s revised qualification process concerning the British -51kg flyweight Charley Davison, a mother of three who returned to the sport only last year after a seven-year break.

Like Bujold, it is unlikely Davison would be given a ranking should her Olympic European qualifying event next month in France be cancelled. With the qualifier still due to take place, however, she remains on course to qualify for the Games.

“It’s the greatest example, for me, because she’s come back to the sport and is one fight away from qualifying. This is what I would have done, had I had the opportunity to fight,” says Bujold, who hopes her ordeal can serve as a wake-up call to other sporting organisations who are yet to introduce pregnancy protection.

“There’s so much pressure [on returning mothers], whether it’s from your sponsor or your organisation, that you have to be at certain events. Most women wait until after their athletic career [to have children], or plan it so their career isn’t affected.”

Hers is not just a battle for sporting mothers, but for her daughter, too. “I know this is something she’s going to look at later in life and understand and see that drive, that passion and being able to not give up on something that you want to fight for,” Bujold says.

“Also, it’s just the moments I’m spending away from her – they’re important moments. I’ve dedicated myself to represent my country at the Olympic Games and that’s why it’s extra tough for me, when you think of all those small moments.”

The 33-year-old’s determination to compete at the Games is also fuelled by the fact she has unfinished business at Tokyo, where she would be the first female to box for Canada at consecutive Olympics.

She contracted a virus ahead of her quarter-final bout at Rio and, remarkably, wrenched herself free from her saline drip in hospital to show up to the ring. “I was completely drained but I knew I’d worked for that moment for 13 years, so I thought, ‘I’ve got to at least step into the ring and give it a shot’,” she says.

“It obviously didn’t work out in my favour result-wise, but I lasted three rounds.” It is a treasured insight into the fighting spirit Bujold is embodying in her latest quest to be respected as a woman, an athlete and a mother.