TRANSCRIPT
Gloving up for a training session in the boxing gym.
At just 21 years old, proud Ngarrindjeri woman, Marissa Williamson-Polhman is on the precipice of history.
"Oh my god! I just like, when you are a kid and when you see these Olympians on the TV - they seem so far out of reach. To be walking out like that - and putting my mob on the map is just one of the biggest achievements of my entire life."
When she walks out in a green and gold tracksuit in Paris this year, the amateur boxer will stand as an image of Blak excellence.
But for Marissa, it's the journey to the Olympics that should be the real inspiration.
"As someone who went through the foster care system and had a lot of placements; and someone who ended up homeless quite frequently – I didn’t really think that I would achieve anything in my life. I just found refuge in boxing. I boxed because my life was - it was terrible. But all of a sudden, my life started just getting better and then my boxing became something that I did to just be good at. And that sort of manifested into qualifying for the Olympics."
For the 21-year-old, this is all part of what made her – and it is also what makes her such an inspiration.
"I have been in and out of homelessness since I was 13 years-old. I think for people to hear that and see me show up time and time again, every single day; hold myself to account every single day."
It was a chance meeting with ex-army veteran and boxing coach Kel Bryant that changed the course of her life.
He knew from the first time he saw the then teenager, she had was something special.
"It was her willingness to keep fighting even though she was getting beaten. It was her willingness not to give in. And she had something about her where even though she was under pressure, she still wasn't getting hit with flush punches. So she could see things coming her way. So really all that was missing from that raw kid, was basically a skillset. And knowing how to throw a couple of punches. And maybe I thought: gee, if she trained her mind a little bit to box, she could really go places."
Marissa says the mentorship has been transformational.
"Walking into this gym was the best thing I ever did. There was something about the way that he talked - like blakfellas love stories... From there, we've been attached at the hip ever since."
In just five years, Marissa has become the rising star in Australian amateur boxing, winning State and National titles, a Pacific Games gold - and now a ticket to the Olympics.
"She said to me one day, she said: I really want a better life. And I said: well you could have it through boxing. I can put it down to Marissa showing up every day. We have good days and bad days but she shows up every day."
Bryant didn’t just help Marissa in the ring.
He introduced her to a family at the Collingwood Boxing Club, helped her find a safe place to live - and eventually a home to call her own.
Marissa says that made a huge difference.
"I didn't have any discipline. I didn't really have any life skills because no one was really. I didn’t really have a role model or someone who stood by me the way a parent would."
As success leads the 21-year-old to a new chapter in her life, it also highlights the stark contrast in support for her now, compared when she was an Indigenous kid in care.
"It's about the adults. And it's about the adults taking that responsibility and accountability and actually caring about Blak children before they’ve made it; before they’ve done something spectacular, before they’ve done something wonderful. It only took one person to believe in me. Imagine if I had that from the start like what I would have been capable of."
With the eyes of her country on her in Paris, Marissa knows how much rides on her success.
"It hasn't quite hit me yet - to be honest just because I have been on a trajectory anyway. It has been a bit of a process. I think it might hit me during the opening ceremony - or when I am about to get punched in the face in my first bout at the Olympics. Yeah, it hasn't quite hit me yet."
Her coach, Bryant, says it will be a proud moment.
"When she walks out of that ring and delivers - win, lose or draw. I will have a tear in my eye. I will be covered in goosebumps. I will be there. It is going to be a magnificent moment. And I know she will give her all - 100 per cent."
