ORLANDO, Fla. — Orlando will be represented in Paris this summer when Omari Jones takes the biggest stage at the 2024 Summer Olympics. The Edgewater High School alumnus qualified for Team USA in boxing. 

What You Need To Know

  • Omari Jones is an Edgewater High School alumnus and Orlando native

  • In March, Jones won four consecutive matches to qualify for Team USA in boxing

  • Jones will represent the United States at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics 

  • No male boxer from the U.S. has medaled at the Olympics in 20 years

Jones' journey to the Olympics has been a long one.

In March, he reached his goal of qualifying for the Olympics, winning four consecutive fights. The match that wrapped up his golden ticket was a 4-1 decision against Nishant Dev in the 71-kilogram division at the 2024 Olympic Games World Qualifying Tournament in Busto Arsizio, Italy.

"The fight, as you can see, my last fight I got hit here," he said, pointing to a bandage under his eye. "But I had to go to a place where, you know, I have never been before in the ring. I had to dig deep and just make sure that I didn't come home without that golden ticket."

"Even though it's a lot on the line for being an Olympic qualifier, you also have to treat it like it's another match," he added. "You don't want to get too overwhelmed. So I just stayed poised. That's what, that's what got me the golden ticket."

The golden ticket is a little piece of paper designed to look like an airplane boarding pass. That paper symbolizes the fight it took to get to this moment.

"It just sounds like everything that I'd dreamed of as a child and everything that I worked for," Jones said. "It's officially being called an Olympian."

Jones reflected on the moment while rewatching the video of his hand being raised in the ring to indicate he had won. 

"It was just, like, me letting out all the pressure and everything that I've been through, the suffering and training," he said. "I just had to let it out. It was a big screen, just letting my emotions out and just glad we got the job done. But it's not finished just yet."

Jones not only will represent his country proudly, but said it's always important to him to represent his hometown of Orlando.

"It means it means a lot, actually, for the kids to look up to me, for Orlando to kind of say, you know, 'You're the next hope and the next person to come out to be great,'" Jones said. "So my goal is just to not, you know, let too much get to my head, to stay humble and just to go out to Paris and bring back that gold medal."

Jones will be one of 13 boxers representing Team USA this summer in an effort to do something that a male USA boxer hasn't accomplished in 20 years: medal at an Olympics. At 21 years old, Jones said he is ready to show the world the work he has put in. 

"It still is unbelievable. And, but, like I said, I know the work that I put in to get to this point, so I'll say it's shocking, but it's definitely not a surprise because this is what I work for," Jones said. "It's for my name and for me to be called an Olympian."

Jones will split his time between his home in Orlando and training in Colorado Springs, Colo., until Team USA departs for Paris for the 2024 Summer Olympics.