- Today’s presenters share a long group hug with Harry Garside
- Garside’s Olympic dreams were crushed on Monday
- Garside felt he had let the country down after his defeat
Australian boxer Harry Garside has shared an extended group hug with Today presenters Karl Stefanovic and Sara Abo following his very emotional reaction to his unexpected defeat at the Paris Olympics.
Garside, 27, could not hide his grief when his 20-year dream was shattered in just nine minutes on Monday night.
He lost in the round of 16 by unanimous decision to Hungarian Richard Kovacs, a surprising result, as Victoria had won bronze in Tokyo and was aiming for gold this time.
The popular boxer was forced to cut short his media duties after an uncomfortably raw TV appearance left viewers concerned about his mentality, initially saying he had let his country down.
“I feel like a failure,” Garside said in an interview immediately after the match.
“It’s a wild sport, and after three years it’s already over… I feel very numb, I didn’t expect this to happen.”
Garside, who has been open about his mental health struggles, previously admitted in an interview with Nine that he is worried about the coming months as he comes to terms with his defeat.
“I feel pretty numb right now, but I think the next month or two are going to be pretty challenging and tough,” he said.
Harry Garside shared his grief in an uncomfortably raw interview after seeing his Olympic dream shattered at the first hurdle in Paris
Garside, Karl Stefanovic and Sara Abo hugged for 10 seconds on Tuesday morning as the Today presenters tried to pull him out of the slump he has been in since the shock defeat
Garside seemed in much better spirits Tuesday when he appeared on the Today Show, saying he wants to show young people that “failure is a part of life” and that how he deals with it is our choice.
He said he had low self-esteem when he started boxing, but that has since changed.
“You gain self-worth and self-respect by the way you treat other people,” he said.
‘And it’s those little moments in the day when you help someone with their groceries or shake someone’s hand… or do something nice. That’s how you build self-esteem.
He went on to say that he believes our mission in life is to find out who he is and that he is still on that journey.
At the end of the interview, Stefanovic said his mother told him to give Garside a big hug, after which he and Abo stood up and the three embraced for about 10 seconds as music played.
The Australian star was knocked out in the round of 16 of the men’s boxing
Garside will remain in Paris and support the rest of Australia’s 12-man boxing team before considering his next move.
Following Garside’s fight, Australian boxer Teremoana Teremoana became the first Australian to win a super heavyweight bout in Olympic history.
He surprised Ukrainian Dmytro Lovchynskyi with a knockout in the first round of their 92 kg+ fight at the North Paris Arena.
In the quarter-finals he will now face the reigning Olympic champion Bakhodir Jalolov from Uzbekistan.
“We are here to win and I am happy that I solved it in the first round,” said Teremoana.
“I didn’t plan on going for the knockout, I’m confident in my own strength, but the plan was to go there and box. I threw some good punches and he felt it.
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