By MONTY MOSHER -- Halifax Chronicle-Herald
IT WAS AN Olympian feat just to get to Australia for boxer Scott MacIntosh.

But after a three-nation tour to qualify for the 2000 Games, the Cape Breton native and Halifax resident begins his journey to Sydney today.

Ingrid Bulmer/Herald Photo Canadian Olympic boxer Scott MacIntosh, shown training on Tuesday at the Citadel Amateur Boxing Club, leaves today on a journey that will land him in Sydney, Australia for the 2000 Olympics Games in September. After a two week training camp in Hawaii, the Cape Breton native is scheduled to fight his first Olympic bout Sept. 19.

"For sure, I will represent Nova Scotia to the best of my ability," MacIntosh said during a last trip home prior to the Olympics. "But I'm not going there to spectate. I'm a medal contender and I can't see me coming home without a medal."

MacIntosh, 26, joins the rest of the Canadian Olympic boxers for a two-week training camp in Hawaii before moving on to Australia. The 71 kg (light middleweight) fighter has his first fight in the Olympics on Sept. 19.

The Canadians will stay at a U.S. army post in Hawaii and train against the U.S. army and marine corps teams. Some pros will be involved in the sparring as well.

MacIntosh spent two weeks earlier this month high-altitude training in British Columbia. There was no boxing involved, just running, hiking, swimming and kayaking. "They wanted us to be hungry to box when we got home," MacIntosh said.

He hasn't boxed since qualifying for the Olympics in June by beating Argentina's Arial Abalos 6-5 at a last-chance tournament in Buenos Aires. He lost in previous qualifiers in Tampa and Tijuana, Mexico.

In each tournament, always further from home, he had to face an opponent from the host nation in a key contest.

It was one of the hardest roads to the Olympics a Commonwealth and Pan-Am Games silver medalist could ever travel and it came down to the call of the judges in Argentina.

Thumbs up, he's an Olympian. Thumbs down, he's got to recall three failed cracks at Sydney for the rest of his life.

So was it all worth it?

"It's worth it now that I'm there," he said. "It was really down to the wire in Argentina where this could be the most exciting time of my life or the worst time of my life and I wanted to remember a great time and not a bad time.

"It was right there. It was out of my hands at that point. It was up to the judges whether or not this was going to be the best time of my life. I feel great now."

The four-time Canadian champ in his weight class came home in desperate need of a vacation. Now he believes the three-tournament ordeal will make him stronger. "I had to go through that and I still did it. I think everything after that is going to be easy. I can't wait to get over to the Olympics and fight."

MacIntosh entered the sport relatively late in life when he walked into the Sydney Olympic Boxing Club seven years ago as a teenager just curious to sample life in the ring.

He spent a few years boxing while attending St. F.X. but never took it very seriously.

He was pleased as punch just to lose by a single point to Nicky Farrell in the Olympic boxing trials prior to the 1996 Atlanta Games.

However, national team coaches Wayne and Taylor Gordon of Halifax were already in his ear about working harder with an eye to 2000.

"I can't say I dreamed about the Olympics since I was a child," he said. "I always try to keep my dreams within goal reach and I never thought I would get to that level.

"The last three years I started wondering if I could ever be at the Olympics. Now that I am here, it's unbelievable."

He can thank Canadian Olympic teammate and close friend Mike Strange of Niagara Falls, Ont., for inspiration.

"The first time I watched the Olympics (1996) I watched Mike Strange," he said. "I didn't know who he was. I just saw him on TV and I thought how great it was and how great he must feel. I thought he represented himself very well and I thought I would like to be like that someday.

"It's a dream come true for me that all these things that were so far out there are now in the palm of my hand. I have to take advantage of my opportunities."

While MacIntosh had to work overtime to get to Sydney, he's no medal longshot. He fought reigning world champion Jorge Gutierrez of Cuba to a one-point loss (the referee stopped the bout in the dying seconds because MacIntosh had a nosebleed) in last year's Pan-Am Games in Winnipeg.

No one in the world scares him and he just sees the Olympics as a bigger version of the same kind of tournaments where he has already fought successfully.

"I don't think that I'm going to get caught up in the Olympic (publicity) blitz that's going on. I'm going to go there and fight my fight and try and get my medal and come home. I'll have my fun when it's over. I totally feel prepared. I've been to these major competitions before and I just don't feel any pressure."

For him a sharp mind will be critical. He knows everyone will have a sound body. With Wayne Gordon, his coach at Citadel Amateur Boxing Club, in his corner, he believes he'll be able to make quick adjustments in the ring.

"My biggest asset is I'm smarter than most of the guys I fight," he said. "I'm very versatile. I will change to my surroundings, do what works best for me not what works best for them. I'm going to be a boxer first. If I'm getting outboxed, I will change.

"There's only one chance in the Olympics and I have to make decisions in the ring within a split second. I feel confident in being able to do that. I think it's going to be a good tournament for me."

MacINTOSH FILE

Name: Scott MacIntosh
Weight: 71 kilograms
Height: 5-10
Age: 26
Resides: Halifax
Achievements: Four-time Canadian champion; 1997 Francophone Games silver medal; 1998 Commonwealth Games silver medal; 1999 Pan Am Games silver medal.
Olympic qualifying: Lost to Jermain Taylor (U.S.) in semifinals in Tampa in March; lost to Jose Zertuche (Mexico) in semifinals in Tijuana, Mex., in April; won gold medal bout over Argentina's Arial Abalos 6-5 in Buenos Aires in June.
First Olympic bout - Sept. 19, 2000.