The scene was so beautiful that Orlando had tears in his eyes as he translated it for me. After the fight, when everything was over, Kim Clavel headed to the locker room of Yesenia Gomez, the former world champion she had just dethroned.
Kim was going to give Yesenia back her WBC belt while waiting to receive a new one from the world federation.
She entered the locker room. Yesenia sat, her hands still cold from having soaked them in ice following the fight, her face scarred by Clavel’s blows.
Kim still had her hands wrapped. She walked towards the Mexican who stood up in respect. Kim took both her hands and told her she knew, in her learned Spanish to
Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, that it hadn’t been easy, that she had worked hard, and above all, that she hit very hard: “But you, you’re very fast”, replied Miss Gomez.
“The show is over, we can be friends,” Clavel continued.
“You may know you have a friend in Mexico,” Yesenia replied, holding Kim’s with both hands.
Before heading to the former champion’s coach, Kim kissed her hand and gave her a friendly smile…
Somewhere in France where I had sent him the video so that he might translate it for me, my friend the producer Orlando Arriagada, a tall, very sensitive Chilean, had the motton: “It’s a very moving scene”, he said. abstract.
How can you not love boxing?
STILL ON ITS CLOUD
Kim Clavel had a brilliant voice when we spoke yesterday.
“I’m still on my cloud. Today, [hier] it’s a frankly crazy media day. But I want to live it fully. World champion is the culmination of so much effort. And then I won once morest a real champion. Yesenia Gomez never gave up, she hit hard,” said Kim Clavel.
And then, she won in Montreal in front of her world. His parents were present, and several of his fellow nurses from the Joliette hospital.
We remember that during the pandemic, Kim returned to the hospital to lend a hand to the overworked staff.
It was with all these good people that she shared her moment of glory following the fight.
Especially since she has already received an invitation to attend ringside September 10 in London in a unification fight between Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall. A big deal. Very big even.
“I have never been to London. I will enjoy it,” she said.
And you want to know what she did on Sunday morning when she woke up following her triumph? She called her coach Danielle Bouchard to tell her that she felt like doing some shadow boxing.
She ended up at the gym.
Cha bat Artur Beterbiev.
TWO PROMOTERS IN AGREEMENT
It’s rare that Camille Estephan and Yvon Michel are in agreement. Kim Clavel has achieved the feat.
“Kim’s victory is good for women’s boxing, but above all it is good for all of boxing. It was a good fight and people love Kim Clavel. It’s good for Mary Spencer and Leïla Beaudoin, but it’s bigger than that. Watch how people embarked on victory in a stage [du Tour de France] of our Quebec cyclist,” said Estephan following Clavel’s victory.
“It’s a big step for women’s boxing. Kim is going to be an international star. And that’s good for all of Quebec boxing. People will distinguish between men’s boxing and women’s boxing as we have learned to do with tennis and golf. It’s a very important victory,” explains Yvon Michel, who finds himself with three world champions.
Oscar Rivas, Marie-Eve Dicaire and Kim Clavel.
HAPPY 4TH YEAR HOLDER
Perhaps the happiest of all was Danielle Bouchard.
Courtesy picture
Kim Clavel and her coach Danielle Bouchard following Friday’s victory.
“I had been chasing my dream for years. Become the coach of a world champion. I had a first dream of participating in the Olympic Games. As a boxer, I didn’t have the opportunity, but I was with Ariane Fortin in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 to live my first dream. This time, I get up in the morning and I can tell myself that I trained a world champion. I didn’t execute the movements, I didn’t give or receive the blows, but I guided Kim Clavel in his progression. I taught her what I knew and she worked hard and devoutly to put everything in place whatever it took. I am immensely proud,” said Danielle Bouchard.
Besides, she’s already received a nice collection of emails from her classmates at school.
Danielle holds her 4th grade class and has two full-time careers. That of coach and that of teacher. But she comes from Jonquière, which explains everything…
And Stéphan Larouche is her spouse and her cutman is Pierre “Pedro” Bouchard, his little brother.
There are dinners where it must talk a little regarding boxing around the table…
