Meet the eight Team USA boxers going for gold at the 2024 Olympics - ESPN

The USA Olympic boxing team will face the same daunting task that has eluded the squad in each of the last four Olympic Games: a gold medal on the men's side.

Andre Ward is the last American man to capture Olympic gold, doing so at the 2004 Games in Athens. Ward went on to enjoy a Hall of Fame career in the pros.

Jahmal Harvey is widely regarded as the best hope to end that 20-year Olympic gold medal drought. The 21-year-old featherweight — along with the rest of the four-member men's and women's boxing teams — are in Paris for the commencement of the 2024 Summer Olympics on Friday.

«It's very important to me just to bring the morale back to the U.S.,» Harvey told ESPN. «We haven't won a gold medal in 20 years, so just to get that done and bring all the excitement, get some attention back on USA boxing and just to have little kids see you do it just to make 'em work harder and believe in themself that they can do it.

»And it is bigger than me really. Even if I don't do it, I'm glad to be a part of a team where my other teammates can do it and that I was along the ride to push them."

Before the team embarked on Paris, two-division undisputed champion Claressa Shields visited the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and gave the team a pep talk. Shields knows what to expect: she's the only American boxer to win a gold medal since Ward, doing so twice (2012 and 2016).

«The best advice that I gave them was to remove any doubt and believe 110% in yourself,» Shields, who challenges Vanessa Joanisse for a heavyweight title Saturday in Detroit, told ESPN on Wednesday. She also screened her upcoming biopic, «The Fire Inside,» for the team.

«Believe in your training, believe in your hard work, believe in your