Harry Garside is an Australian boxer who thinks outside the box.
The 27-year-old represented Australia at Tokyo 2020, winning bronze in the men’s lightweight category and becoming the first Australian boxer to win an Olympic medal since Grahame Cheney won silver at Seoul in 1998.
Plus, he did it while wearing rainbow nail polish.
“I just want to break stereotypes, to be honest. I’m a big one for that,” he said after defeating Kazakhstan’s Zakir Safiullin. “There’s a lot of people out there who feel like they have to be something because they’re a male or a female.”
“I’m all about just being different.”
Now, Harry is hitting the dance floor in this season of Dancing With The Stars with dance partner Siobhan Power, a seasoned professional dancer who has previously partnered with stars like Jamie Durie and Kris Smith.
Here’s everything we know about Dancing With The Stars’ Harry Garside.
HARRY’S EARLY LIFE IN MELBOURNE AND HIS CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS MUM
Harry started boxing at Lilydale Youth Club when he was just nine years old. He lost 10 of his first 18 fights but that just made him more determined to keep going and get better.
“At the time it sucked but it formed this unbreakable desire to be No.1 and not stop until I get to where I want to go,” he said in an interview with the Australian Olympic Committee.
Earlier this year, Harry wrote about his childhood and his close relationship with his mum Kate for the Sydney Morning Herald.
“My parents didn’t have much money and worked multiple jobs to make ends meet. As the youngest son, I was definitely closer to her,” he wrote. “My brother Josh is five years older than me and Jack is three years older. I fall into the youngest child syndrome – Mum made sure they did everything for me. As a result, I was softer by nature.”
HARRY GARSIDE’S OLYMPIC CAREER AND MENTAL HEALTH CHALLENGES
After winning bronze at Tokyo 2020, Harry qualified for Paris 2024 and was determined to bring another medal home.
But it was not meant to be. Harry went down by unanimous decision to Hungarian Richard Kovacs in his first bout.
“It’s crazy mate, two decades dedicated to one dream and it’s over just like that,” an emotional Harry told Brenton Ragless on Channel 9’s Paris 2024 coverage.
“I feel pretty numb right now but I feel the next month or two will be quite challenging, quite hard,” he continued. “I fear for my mind, it gets the better of me, I feel like I let a few people down but what do you do?”
“Australia’s such a sporting nation and I’m so sorry. I feel like a failure right now. I don’t even know what to say.”
Earlier in the year, Harry had opened up about the mental health challenges he experienced after he was accused of domestic violence by a former partner. The charges were later dropped.
“I feel like I turned into a man last year. It was a real coming-of-age moment for me,” he told Neil Mitchell on his podcast ASKS WHY at the time. “I had never contemplated suicide so much in my life from that period of time.”
“Being in the public eye… not wanting to leave the house, it was so, so heavy. And the added element of trying to show the people around me that ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I’ll get through this’,” he continued.
“[But] it was all just thoughts of not wanting to be here. Only reason I didn’t was my mum. The one day where it wasn’t just thoughts, it went to be action, it turned out to be Mother’s Day … I just remember thinking how selfish I would be if I was to do it on that day.”
HARRY GARSIDE ON “BREAKING STEREOTYPES”
In and out of the boxing ring, now 27-year-old Harry has always been determined to break stereotypes and demonstrate a different kind of masculinity. He incorporated ballet into his training regime for the Olympics, often wears a dress in public, and isn’t afraid to show his vulnerability in public.
“I’ve always had close female friends and I’ve known my best friend, Emily, since high school. We talk weekly and message every other day. I’d like to think I have high emotional intelligence,” he wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald. “Although I love being a man, and I love the male space, it’s tough at times because we don’t have the same emotional support systems as women.”
While talking to Man of Many about his book The Good Fight: Boxing, Ballet and Breaking Stereotypes, Harry said writing the book helped him understand his own version of masculinity more.
“You don’t have to be a man to be masculine. I know many women that hold masculine traits, including my mum, she’s got bigger balls than I do, but she’s the stabilising trunk in my life, right? The trunk of the tree holds everything together, it does all the work under the surface, and provides all the nutrients, it’s strong, and sturdy,” he told the publication.
“Whereas I see feminine energy as the flow, the leaves, the branches, the breeze, the beauty of the tree. I think we have both sides within us.”
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
