From the moment he had his first amateur fight at age 10 in 2009, Wyatt Sanford “immediately knew” that boxing was meant for him. The following years only confirmed it.
From 2012 to 2015, the pride of Kennetcook, Nova Scotia, won four consecutive Canadian junior championships. In 2017, he became the top-ranked boxer in the country at the senior level, a ranking he held until his transition to the professional ranks in 2025.
But it was also – and perhaps most notably – on the international stage that Wyatt Sanford made his mark. In 2019, he competed at the World Amateur Championships in Russia, followed by his first Olympic appearance at the Tokyo Games in 2021. The following year, he earned bronze at both the Continental Championships and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England.
Continuing his climb to the podium, he secured a silver medal at the 2023 Continental Championships before striking gold at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile. However, 2024 marked the pinnacle of his Olympic career. At his second Olympic Games, held in Paris, he won the bronze medal in the 63.5 kg category. This victory was nothing short of historic—it was Canada’s first Olympic boxing medal in nearly 30 years, dating back to 1996!
Following this triumph and having achieved all his Olympic goals, Wyatt Sanford announced his transition to the professional ranks in January 2025. The lightweight prospect already boasts a decorated Olympic career, but despite this, his coach, Vincent Auclair, believes the best is yet to come.
“Wyatt has always been a physical boxer, even in Olympic boxing. In three-round fights, his best rounds were almost always the second and third, so you can already imagine what he’ll do in the pros,” said the head coach of Boxing Canada, who will continue to train Sanford in preparation for his professional debut in 2025.
