Laredo Native Jennifer Lozano Qualifies for 2024 Olympics

The Gateway City has quickly become a boxing hotbed. The city of about 230,000 people has been producing high-level professionals and amateur boxers at break-neck speeds. Laredo now has its first-ever Olympian. Jennifer "La Traviesa" Lozano needs no introduction in The Gateway City, and the 50-kilo (110-pound) female fighter has her ticket to the 2024 Paris Summer Games.

The 20-year-old qualified for the games with a dominant 5-0 points victory over Canadian Mckenzie Wright in the quarter-finals of the Pan-Am Games in Santiago, Chile. In an emotional moment, Lozano gave her ticket to her mother, who was in the stands, and the pair celebrated Lozano qualifying for the Olympics.

"We are going to Paris, baby. La Traviesa es de Laredo, Texas. We are ready for all of the world. We are going to the Olympics," The Laredoan exclaimed and went on to say, "Being the first Olympian from Laredo means a lot to me."

The Border town will have an excellent chance to get its second Olympian later in the year as Emilio Garcia, who came up just short in the Pan Am games, will have two more chances to qualify for the games in the 63.5 Kilos men's division.

Two Texans Score International Gold in Ecuador

Two Texans take home international championship gold at The American Boxing Confederation (AMBC) elite Championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The tournament ran from March 22 to April 2. Jennifer Lozano from Laredo captured a finals victory and dominated the tournament from start to finish. The Gateway City native took a 5-0 decision over Argentine fighter Tatiana Flores Milagros of Argentina to capture the 50 KG (110-pound) championship. On the men's side, in the 51 KG division (112 pounds), championship Roscoe Hill, from Spring, Texas, takes home the Gold after also taking a 5-0 decision over Argentine Ramon Quiroga dominated Romero Reyes Erislan of Cuba in the Gold Medal round.

19-year-old Hill, came out of some level of obscurity to capture the silver medal in the 2021 World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, back in November. In his first international tournament, Hill scored staggering upsets over seasoned vets like Federico Serra of Italy on his way to coming up just short to Kazakhstan fighter Saken Bibossinov and capturing Silver. If 2021 was his coming out party he certainly made a bold statement to start 2022 in Ecuador to show 2021 was no fluke. He received a bye in the first round due to his high seeding and then beat Martin Perez of Panama by 5-0 decision, also shout our Quiroga to advance to the finals and then handed in the Gold Medal performance by outclassing Reyes Erislan of Cuba.

Lozano captured the national championship title at Shreveport back in December when she outpointed Kayla Gomez of El Paso in the finals. She came out and put together an absolutely dominated week of boxing. She blanked Liliana Murillo Deicy of Columbia (5-0) in the first round. Stopped Ecuador's Genesis Gomez in front of her home crowd in the second round and then dominated Flores Milagros to capture the Gold medal. 

Texas was well represented in addition to Hill and Lozano. There were many other Texans  representing the US in the Contential Championships including Emilio Garcia,  of Laredo, Kayla Gomez of El Paso, and Josh Edwards of Houston who won his first-round contest over Mexican boxer Luis Gomez Meneses, by a score of 5-0.