Ariane Fortin: The Canadian world champ taking Korean women’s boxing to their first Olympics

Ariane Fortin is no stranger to boxing at the highest level. As a double world champion (2006 and 2008) and Rio 2016 Olympian, the Canadian former-athlete has fought the best and beaten the best.

Now she has taken up a new role as the first female and first foreign coach of the Korean national boxing team. And the boxer-turned-trainer will be lending her wisdom and experience to a women’s team that has never before competed at an Olympics.

In fact, you would need to go back 33 years for the last time the Republic of Korea team - men's or women's - tasted glory on an Olympic boxing stage. At Seoul 1988, the men’s team won two gold medals (flyweight Kim Kwang-sun and light middleweight Park Si-hun) but since then no Korean athlete has stood on the top spot of an Olympic podium. London 2012 was the last time the men's team won a medal of any colour, with Han Soon-chul taking home silver after losing in the final to one of today’s biggest boxing stars, Vasyl Lomachenko (Ukraine).

But with Tokyo 2020 on the horizon, the prospects of the women’s team look decidedly more positive, with two female boxers having already qualified for the Games: Oh Yeon-ji and Im Ae-ji. And with the chance to shine on the world’s biggest sporting stage now a reality, the national team have recruited the highly-experienced Fortin to guide them on their Olympic journey.

In an exclusive interview, Fortin spoke to Tokyo 2020 about the reason she joined the Korean national team, her experiences of coaching the athletes and the lessons she learnt from a thrilling career at the highest levels of boxing.

Tokyo 2020: What made you decide to join the Korean national team?

Fortin: Actually last year I worked with the Canadian national team and we were invited by Korea to do a joint national training camp.

They're very used to having foreigners join their training camps, so we were invited and I went over for two weeks last February, right before the pandemic. 

And over there, Mr. Choi, the director of the federation, offered me a job and honestly, I was so excited about it. I love the fact of being in a new culture, but it's also a very big challenge and I really felt comfortable immediately there, even in just two weeks. And it's not the case with all countries and all boxing experiences but I really felt comfortable with them. 

Especially I would say as a woman coach, I had my apprehensions. Maybe there are not that many women coaches. And I'm like, 'OK, I'm starting my international coaching career'. Of course, at home I'm more known and everything, but how is it going to be internationally? And I was treated with a lot of respect by the Korean coaches. So all that together, it made the decision really easy.

What was your first impression of Korean boxing, after joining the team?

I had watched their qualifier already and because I knew I was going to come here, it was only a matter of time with COVID. 

There are a lot of similarities between the Asian style and American styles, I would say. But the Korean style, they're very good and very light on their feet. They're really good at measuring the distance. And it's so frustrating to box against the Korean style for an American because they play with their hands a lot and you think you finally got them and then they're already gone. So they're really good at managing the distance. I think this is one of the strengths of their boxing style.

Is there a big difference between the Republic of Korea and Canada in terms of training?

They're very focused more on the long-term and I would say we [Canadian boxers] are more individualist and they [Korean boxers] are more collective. You can feel it in the training by the small things they always do. We start together and finish together, from the beginning to the end of the warmup. So it's a really good team spirit. Of course, we have that in Canada in other manners, but it is really strong here. They cheer each other a lot during training. Little things like that show me the atmosphere between the athletes is really, really good and it's definitely positive for them.

Two boxers from the Republic of Korea have qualified for Tokyo 2020. You haven't been in the team for a huge amount of time, but what sort of strength do you see in them?

Youn-ji, she's the more mature one, she's 29 or 30, she is a very good counterpuncher and very athletic. I think she's the most athletic athlete. It's easy to see with the naked eye. She is very smart, manages her energy really well in the ring throughout the competition, which is a huge, huge asset. And usually, only more mature athletes can do that. Typical Asian styles are not the most powerful, if I compare them to American boxing styles, but they're definitely really good with their distance. So, I would say the strength of Youn-ji is that she is a very, very smart boxer, and a very good counterpuncher. 

Ae-ji, she is so young, she's twenty-something and still in her transition. I mean, she's already qualified so she's doing really well at the senior level, but I consider her as being still in transition from the youth level to the senior level. 

She definitely has really good potential. She's a southpaw, as I was, so I plan to share with her all of my tricks.

Both of them have a really good work ethic so I was really happy to be here. Because of the pandemic, you don't know what kind of facility they had for training and I was worried about them not being in shape. But both of them showed up to camp here three weeks ago in really decent shape. So that tells me they have a really good work ethic and are both really strong mentally and generally really good human beings, open to learning, curious. You know, those are the qualities you're looking for as an athlete. So I feel really lucky that I have the chance to work with them.

Tokyo 2020 will be the first Olympic experience for Korean women’s boxing. What can you tell them about the pressure, and what advice would you have for them?

We've already discussed that and there is some more psychological work to be done on that side. But I'm not the only Olympian. The team of coaches here - six wonderful coaches - two of them I work with every day are Olympians as well. So I think it's a huge asset to have. 

I would say that being a woman gives a little more edge, because we're not all the same. From the discussions that I've had with Youn-ji and Ae-ji who are qualified for the Olympics, I could point right away to how they were feeling. 

I was talking to them about the stress of the Olympics and how they were going to feel, how they're going to have physical and mental reactions that they don't expect. 

One day you're feeling good in your body and you expect a really good training, but then it's not what you wanted - and stress does that to you. 

So I had the chance to discuss that with them. And they were listening to me with their eyes open as if it was what they had lived and had experienced. So I think after a really good start and hopefully I can use my Olympic experience to make theirs better. But I can't take away the pressure that they have. They are the first women to qualify for the Olympics for their country. It's huge. I mean, of course, it's going to be stressful for them, but hopefully I can contribute to making that better.

Your appointment has raised the expectation of people in Korea. Is there enough time for you to make a big difference or is this more of a longer-term project?

I think both. As I said, I watched the qualifiers. So I'm targeting things that we will realistically be able to see an improvement in within five or six months. But at the same time, I think there's so much more that can be done in the long term. And I'm lucky enough that, hopefully if everything goes well, my contract, for now, is until August, but renewable. And when I had a few discussions with the director, he really has a longer-term vision and wants to give me more room to work in the next Olympic cycle.

So it goes both ways, I think. Realistically, I'm not going to change their boxing styles. They qualified for the Olympics because they've been doing a lot of things right. So I don't want to change, I don't want to take anything from their style.

But I still think from my outside perspective, I can help to make a few corrections, maybe additions to their boxing in the short term. And then we're going to have so much more fun in the longer term because then you can dig a little deeper.

The experience I had from my Olympic year, I knew about 10 months before the Olympics that my own personal coach couldn't be in my corner. At the time the national team wasn't centralised, so we joined the team 10 months prior to the Olympics with a new coach. And she was the one who was going to be in my corner at the Olympics.

But this is what she did: She targeted some specific little things that she wanted to correct technically and this is what she would hit on repeatedly. Technical things.

When I threw punches, sometimes my elbow would go out. In boxing, you need to put your elbow on your body to protect yourself. Now I have this beautiful picture at the Olympics of me throwing a really good hook with perfect defense so, I was like, ‘OK, that worked’.

You know, since I had this experience with her, I’m confident I can make a few changes in their boxing.

Do you have any names of boxers that the Korean athletes should look out for at Tokyo 2020?

I don't want to focus too much on that side. For example, for the 2016 Olympics, it was different because there were 12 women.

So when I was preparing for that, we made a strategy for all those eleven girls separately before the Games, as we had time to do that.

But now not everybody has qualified and there are too many variables. So I don't think it would be the optimal way to see it like that.

I'd rather think that when I think about what I want to choose to improve with them, I'm looking at them as an opponent. And if I'm boxing with this girl, what's her biggest opening? What are the flaws? You know, this is the way I'm looking at it.

Of course, I'm watching their opponents, but I'd rather think in a more general way and not have them focused too much on one opponent.

The Olympics are six months away. Do you feel like the Games will have more significance, after everything the world has been through over the past year?

COVID has brought a lot of bad things but it definitely, I think, made people closer together. A lot of athletes who are aiming for these Olympics suffered a lot in the last months. So to finally get there after all that time, it's definitely going to be a very special moment.

It's going to be a unique and very meaningful Games. I'm so looking forward to it.

Olympic women's boxing is still relatively young and you are a trailblazer, a pioneer. What advice would you give to those who want to follow in your footsteps?

Boxing has made me live through some very sad and terrible moments, but I wouldn't change that because it also made me stronger. And it sounds like a cliche, "makes you stronger", but it's actually true.

If someone had told me at the time - maybe during the time where it was harder and I wasn't satisfied with my results - if someone had told me ‘don't worry, in the long run, you're going to be stronger’, then I would have been so mad! But it's actually true. When you take a step away from it, you can realise and understand.

And those beautiful qualities we learn through sports like resilience, optimism, we keep with us after. And I consider myself very lucky to have that passion.

So this is what I would say to young people: Don't be afraid of it. It sounds cliche, but it is still so true. I'm very convinced that if you have a passion and you're ready to work hard for it, you can achieve it. You can achieve so much. And even if you don't get to the very, very specific expected result that you are hoping for, like a gold medal, it is always, in the end, worth all the journey.