Kim Clavel has a clear love for her parents. She is emotional, admiring and grateful when she talks about it.
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“The older I get, the more I realize that because they get older too. I talked to my coach Danielle about it in the locker room [Bouchard]and we were both crying because her sister-in-law had just lost her mother.
“I am so happy that my parents come to me healthy. They encourage me in this.
“My father, I talk to him three to four times a week. When I appear on television or in the Journal de Montréal, he makes scrapbooks for me. I think it’s beautiful and I feel lucky to experience this and let them experience this.”
Assembly
Although her parents live separately, the young woman, who grew up in the small village of Saint-Calixte in Lanaudière, claims that boxing represents a bond between her.
“Boxing has really united my family. My father is coming with his friends, they will have dinner together in the cage before the fight. They are all retired gentlemen aged 75 who are on the way up. It’s like a party among friends, and the same goes for my mother.”
However, she was not destined to be a boxer, although she mentions that she was active and quite athletic as a teenager. But at age 15, she fell in love with boxing when she walked into a gym for the first time.
“There was something that vibrated inside me. The sound of the balls, the ringing of the bell, there is a very special atmosphere in a gym that you can’t find anywhere else.”
Gallop
In the Clavel clan, like many Lanaudière families, we were passionate about equestrian sports.
“I come from a horse family,” explains the boxer. My father is a farrier, he lived in Texas for 15 years, he rodeoed, he was a world champion western rider and my sister lives in Oklahoma and is a horse trainer. My mother has 20 horses at home.
She has been putting on gloves out of passion for 17 years and is at the opposite end of the spectrum from her opponent on Saturday, Evelin Bermudez.
“Unlike Bermudez, who is trained by her father and boxes with her sister, I really didn’t grow up in a boxing environment. They were born in a gym.”