Jennifer Lozano was a rambunctious child from an early age. So much so, in fact, that her grandmother crowned her "La Traviesa," or "the Troublemaker" in Spanish.
The first-time Olympian grew up in Laredo, Texas, just a short ride away from the U.S.-Mexico border and the city of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where her grandmother, Virginia, lived.
Lozano and her grandmother were close — they spent many days together, either in Mexico or Texas, while Lozano's mother was at work.
By the time middle school rolled around, Lozano was still as fiery as ever, but her weight and accent made her a target of bullying, both emotional and physical. One day, with her grandmother's voice telling her to fight back ringing in her ear, Lozano joined a boxing gym. Within two years, Lozano's trouble-making tendencies transformed into a red-hot boxing spirit that became nationally recognized.
In this week's episode of "My New Favorite Olympian", an NBC Sports podcast, Lozano recounts her experiences with living in a border town, racially-motivated bullying and navigating the grief that followed her grandmother's sudden death.
"Once my friends started realizing, in school, 'Oh, my God, Jenny's going to the gym, the boxing [gym], that's crazy.' And the bullying kind of stopped after that. ... From then on, I just knew I wanted to represent kids like me at that time," Lozano said. "I was like, 'I don't want my friends to be getting bullied. I don't want kids to continue the cycle,' stuff like that. And so I started losing weight, [and] I told my mom, 'I want to compete. I want to box. I want to get in there.'"
Hear all of that and more in the latest episode of "My New Favorite Olympian."
"My New Favorite Olympian" is an NBC Sports podcast that features the stories of some of Team USA’s most inspiring athletes and the causes they champion. New episodes will release weekly in the lead-up to Paris and between the conclusion of the Olympics and the beginning of the Paralympics.
Follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast platform.