Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We've got a lot of young sporting talent in Canning. One of our best took centre stage at the weekend, and that was local Indigenous man Alex Winwood, who took out the WBC international boxing title, earning his first international belt in Perth. Winwood was up against a former IBO champion in just his second main event and knocked him out in just four rounds. Alex has been building to this moment for some time, taking up the sport of boxing 10 years ago while still in high school. Since then, Alex has been hard at work training under his coach, Brian Sartori, at Mandurah's Eureka Boxing Club.

His success hasn't come easily. A good boxer must be able to take a punch, and he's had his setbacks. In 2016, Alex narrowly missed out on qualifying for the Rio Olympic Games. But he didn't let that stop him. Alex spent the next four years in training, eventually qualifying for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and, later, the 2022 Commonwealth Games. He made headlines as the first Indigenous Australian announced to represent our country at the Tokyo Olympics and became a fan favourite when he performed a traditional Indigenous dance during the opening ceremony.

His win at the weekend is yet another impressive achievement. On behalf of all of my electorate, we look forward to seeing him become the world champion.