With each jab, Jadah Robinson takes another step closer to her dream.
“It’s something that’s been on my mind since I started going to tournaments, and started winning championships and stuff like that,” said Robinson, an 18-year-old boxer from Troy. “It’s something I’ve always dreamed about.”
It's a dream of becoming an Olympian, representing her family, her hometown and the USA.
“It’s something I’ve always dreamed about, and I definitely want put the work in so I can do it,” she said.
That dream started when she first stepped into a gym at 5-years-old.
“It’s crazy. It’s actually amazing because she talked about this when she was real young,” said Sheba Brown, her mother. “‘I’m going to be an Olympian mom. I’m going to be on the USA team.’”
Brown traveled with her daughter all over the country to pursue this dream. The results so far: a four-time USA National Olympic champion, a Silver Glove national champion, a Silver Glove Regional and a state champion.
“She’s a go-getter. She’s on fire right now. She has a drive in her,” Sheba Brown said.
In December, Robinson is hoping to add Olympian to that resume when she competes in the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Lafayette, Louisiana.
“I’m working on my head movement, getting passed punches to beat the body up, and do what I need to do so I’m on top,” Robinson said.
She has been training at the Next Bunch Boxing Gym with her uncle and trainer Samuel Bunch and her cousin Pro Boxer Jahyae Brown.
“You got some people who are talented and don’t work hard. And then you got some people who work hard but not talented. But she’s both,” Jahyae Brown said. “She’s got talent and she works hard. And you can go very far with that.”
“It’s going to be some rough roads through that time, but I believe we can get through it and wind up winning the Olympics,” Bunch said.
Robinson is planning to fight in the 139-pound weight class. She is still fueled from four years earlier, when she came up short and served as an alternate for the 2020 U.S. Olympic team.
But Robinson is ready of finish the job this time, hungrier and primed to knock some heads.
“I feel like I’m getting stronger. I feel like I’m getting better, so whoever I’m put in front of, we are going to go to war,” Robinson said.