With a career amateur boxing record of 56-7, Coachella native and women’s boxing champion Citlalli Ortiz will achieve her lifelong dream this summer: At the age of 24, Ortiz is slated to represent Mexico in an Olympic boxing ring, in the 75 kg (165-pound) weight class in Paris.
Her first fight is set for July 31. She spoke to the Independent via telephone from Targu Mures, Romania, where she was getting ready to fight in the pre-Olympic Golden Belt amateur tournament there.
“Since there are 16 fighters, total, in my weight class, it would be four fights. After two fights, I would already be getting into the metal rounds, right?” she said. “But it just depends on how it goes, and how the draw turns out.”
She said qualifying for the Olympics still feels like a dream.
“I haven’t really soaked it all in yet,” she said. “I think I’m looking forward to all the emotions that I’m going to feel when I’m there, representing Mexico. In a sense, I’ll almost be representing back home (in Coachella) and all the people who support me there. I’m not even sure what I can expect, but I know it’s going to be one of the best times in my boxing career.”
The path that brought her to this point has been unusual. The Independent first met Ortiz in 2016 as she was training for the now-defunct Desert Showdown amateur boxing tournament, which took place at Fantasy Springs in Indio every July. By 2017, she was stepping into the ring to represent the United States sometimes, and Mexico at other times. She explained how she eventually wound up fighting for Mexico.
“I had won my world championship in India in 2017. Knowing that I won that medal, and having also won the nationals, I thought that was going to give me the opportunity to fight for a place in the 2018 Youth Olympic Games,” Ortiz said. “Well, I was wrong. USA Boxing had their own qualification system, and they just denied me—not so much the Olympics in general, but that specific tournament. Since I wasn’t going to turn 17 or 18 again, it was really important to me.
“Mexico also called me to represent them in that same (Youth Olympics) tournament, but since I had already represented USA Boxing in the world championship, I couldn’t go. … It was just the decision of USA Boxing who was going to the Youth Olympics, and they weren’t going to change their mind.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, Ortiz returned to her family’s home in Coachella to train and wait for that storm to pass. Given the unsettled status of the Olympics as she dealt with a suspension for switching from the U.S. team to the Mexico team, she decided it was time to go in a different direction with her boxing career.
“Back in Coachella, the mountains on Dillon Road became my gym,” she said. “That’s where I kept my activity going. … My dad (trainer Alex Ortiz) and I decided to turn professional. It wasn’t one of my easiest decisions. I really did want to wait until I knew more about the Olympics, when they started changing the qualifications and everything … but things kind of took a turn, and I ended up taking the professional road. Honestly, I thought that I wasn’t going to go back (to the Olympic dream) from that, so it was a dream crushed for a bit.”
When the pandemic eased, Ortiz compiled a 4-1 professional record.
“The one loss that I have is kind of controversial for me,” Ortiz said, “but it was a rematch. Still, we’re going to accept it just so that they don’t say I’m a sore loser.”
After the suspension triggered by her move to fight for Mexico ended, she returned to the amateur ranks and began her calculated journey toward a spot on the Mexican Olympic boxing team.
“This past year, I’ve gone to tournaments like the 2023 Central American and Caribbean Games in El Salvador, where I won a silver medal,” Ortiz said. “That qualified me to go to the Pan American Games in Chile, and I got a bronze medal there. That one was tough, because I was one fight away from punching my ticket to the Olympics right then. … Sadly, I lost against a tough opponent. Next, there was another qualifying event which was a world tournament (in Italy), and I lost in the first fight, against Sweden, I believe.”
Her final qualifying opportunity came at the 2024 World Boxing Olympic Qualification Tournament, which took place May 24-June 2 in Bangkok, Thailand.
“That’s where I finally was able to make this dream come alive,” she said. “… I think I was really set to leave it all in the ring, you know? It was kill or be killed, and I feel like that stood out a lot in my preparation. Also, the nerves that I had before each fight helped me be more cautious and aware. That kind of centered me to do what I do best, and not let anything block my mind.”
She admitted that it was odd to face a U.S. boxer in the second round of the 2023 Pan American Games in Chile—the aforementioned tournament where she won a bronze medal.
“I ended up beating them by unanimous decision,” she said. “So I had a lot of emotions at that fight. It was just a (choice) that was made for the best. … But everything was spoken in a very respectful way. No hard feelings, and they even congratulated me. To this day, they say hi to me as if I were still part of them. That’s the importance of leaving things in a good way, in a good manner.”
Now that her spot on the four-person Mexico Olympic boxing team—with two men and two women—is locked down, Ortiz is making her final preparations for her Olympic debut.
“Right now, I’m at this tournament in Romania. I feel like it was a good idea to come out here to fight, because we were told that there were going to be a few Olympians who had already qualified (fighting here),” she said. “So it would be a taste of what we were going to face in Paris. But sadly, there aren’t that many boxers in this tournament, so I’m only going to be fighting once.
“We’ll be going back to Mexico City after this. … Mexico City helps us a lot, because besides it being where we’re from, the altitude in Mexico City helps us a lot with our conditioning, as well as our stamina.”
The one constant throughout Ortiz’s career has been her father, Alex, who has served as her coach and manager since her first tournament bout at the age of 12 back in the Coachella Valley. Ortiz confirmed that he’ll be with her in Paris—but he won’t be able to man her corner as usual.
“When it’s an international tournament with the team, usually the coaches are already set,” she said. “… I’m always able to kind of hear him (during the fights) even through all the noise, if that makes sense. It’s an automatic thing, where I listen for his voice, and I know what he’s telling me to do. He’s not in my corner, but he’s with me always.”
