Mandy Marie Bujold was born July 25, 1987 in Cobourg to Roger and Brigitte Bujold. She had two older brothers. The family liuved in Port Hope, then moved to Moncton, NB where she spent her youth and then to Kitchener, ON where they settled in 2002.
In Moncton her dad hung a heavy bag for her two brothers to pound away on. Mandy at 10, was drawn to it and was on it all the time. In 2004 Mandy was introduced to the sport of boxing and began training. Her first fight was in 2005 when she won at the Brampton Cup Tournament. In 2006 she won the Canadian Junior boxing title in the 50kg class.
In 2007 Bujold won the senior Canadian title in the 50 kg class and gold at the American Women’s Continental Championships. In 2008 she made her first appearance at the AIBA Women’s World Championships. She has made almost annual appearances since. Her best result was 2014 when she finished top 8.
Mandy’s career highlight came in 2011 at the Pan American Games when she won gold. It was the first-time women’s boxing was included at that multi-sport competition. In 2013 she was the Canadian Golden Gloves Champion. In 2014 Bujold earned another multi-sport medal when she captured bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. That year Mandy finished Top 8 in the International Boxing Association World Championships.
In 2015 Bujold successfully defended her Pan Am Games title and became the first female boxer to win 2 gold medals at the Pan Ams. In March 2016 she earned an Olympic berth with a gold medal win at the American Continental Qualifier. At the Olympics Mandy ranked #2 in the world, made it to the flyweight quarterfinals. She became ill the night before and ended up losing her match. In 2017 she won silver at the Continental Championships.
Bujold took some time to get married and then to have a child in November 2018. The 11-time Canadian champion and Boxer of the Year wanted to earn a berth on the Canadian Team to the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Boxing Canada wanted her to move to Montreal to train but Mandy didn’t want to be apart from her family. So, she paid for the training costs herself and asked the public for financial support.
Bujold trained hard in preparation for the Olympic qualifiers. In 2019 she won silver at the International Balkan Tournament. In 2019 she won gold in the 51kg weight class at the Canadian Olympic Qualifier. In early February 2020 at the Bocskai Memorial Tournament at Debrecen, Hungary Mandy earned a bronze. Fifteen years and 165 fights behind her, Mandy needed at least a fourth-place finish to qualify for the 2020 Olympics and become the only Canadian female boxer to earn her way to 2 straight Olympics. And then Covid hit.
Bujold was prepared to compete at the Americas Olympic Qualifier for the Tokyo 2020 postponed Olympics. Mandy was not included in the world ranking list that would now be used to allocate Olympic quota spots because she had been on maternity leave while the events that would count had been held. Mandy appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which ruled that any decisions made about Olympic boxing qualification needed to include accommodation for women who were pregnant or postpartum during the qualification period.
And in 2021 at the postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics Mandy ranked 17th.
During her athletic career she received a number of other awards Including the 2016 KW Citizen of the Year, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal, Oktoberfest Women of the Year (sports category), 2x KW Athlete of the Year, WOW award recipient, and alongside other local VIPs, had “The Golden Bujold” burger named after her by The WORKS Gourmet Burger in Uptown Waterloo.
Updated September 2024
The Cobourg Galloping Ghosts are the most famous team in Cobourg sports history. Managed by Fred Dufton, the Ghosts won eight Ontario championships, five after World War II. They were Canadian Dominion champions in 1946, 1948 and 1950. They were the first team in Canada to wear aluminum cleats and the second to wear white uniforms.
