Alejandra Locomotora Oliveras and the unforgettable night in Tijuana when a knockout made her a big name in Argentine boxing history.

Alejandra Locomotora Oliveras , who has been hospitalized since Monday the 14th of this month after suffering an ischemic stroke (ACV), has been a reference for women's boxing in Argentina, she holds several records and was also the protagonist of a victory that went down in the history books: the one she achieved against Mexican Jackie Nava almost two decades ago .

Oliveras made her professional debut on August 12, 2005, with a second-round TKO victory over Rosario native María del Carmen Potenza in General Levalle, Córdoba. Barely nine months later, and with only seven fights under her belt (six wins and one draw), she received her first world title shot against Nava, who was then considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world.

“I was informed about the fight about three weeks in advance. When Carlos Tello (her trainer at the time) told me, I burst into tears of emotion. All I wanted was to win that belt and give it to my dad,” the Jujuy native said a month after that fight. Luis, her father, had been the main driving force behind her career. “He helped me a lot. After three amateur fights, he told me: 'One day you're going to be a world champion,'” the multi-time champion recounted.

On May 20, 2006, Argentine boxing followed with rapt attention and celebrated Jorge Rodrigo Barrios ' first-round knockout victory over Hungarian Janos Nagy in Los Angeles, which allowed La Hiena to retain his World Boxing Organization (WBO) super featherweight title for the second time. Almost at the same time and 200 kilometers away, in Tijuana , Oliveras challenged local Jackie Nava, then World Boxing Council super bantamweight champion.

La Locomotora , along with her father and Carlos Tello, had arrived at the border city in the state of Baja California after an exhausting trip from Córdoba (where the challenger lived) and with stops in Santiago de Chile, Lima, and Mexico City. In Tijuana, very few people knew her, and even fewer believed in her chances of victory against the Aztec Princess . But the challenger didn't waste her chance.

With a dazzling performance, despite having to deal with a triple fracture in her right hand for part of the fight, Oliveras knocked down her opponent twice in the second round and finally finished her off in the eighth with a devastating left hook that allowed her to seal a victory that, even today, is one of the most important (if not the most) for an Argentine boxer.

In this way, the Jujuy native became the first compatriot to win a crown abroad and the first to obtain a title recognized by one of the historical organizations of this sport, since the only champions until then, Marcela Acuña from Formosa (in the super bantamweight and featherweight categories) and Carolina Gutiérrez from Córdoba (bantamweight), had obtained titles from the Women's International Boxing Association (WIBA).

Oliveras and Nava met again nine months later, on March 2, 2007, at the Orfeo Superdomo in Córdoba. In her second defense (she had defeated Colombian Anays Gutiérrez in her first), the champion retained her belt with a majority decision draw after a very intense and hard-fought fight. “I wanted to get knocked out. I worked hard for that, but she's very tough. Anyway, I think I won well; it shouldn't even have been a draw,” said La Locomotora .

That world title that the Jujuy native won against Nava in 2006 was the first of four she won in four categories (she also reigned in the featherweight, lightweight, and super lightweight divisions), a record for Argentine boxing that only Anahí Sánchez from Pergamino could match in 2018.

Oliveras, 47, has been hospitalized in intensive care, on mechanical ventilation, with a reserved prognosis at the José María Cullen Hospital in Santa Fe since Monday of last week after suffering an ischemic stroke that caused severe brain damage in the left hemisphere.

According to her family, Oliveras showed the first symptoms of neurological symptoms on Monday morning, the day she was scheduled to take office as a constituent representative of Santa Fe. One of her sons found her in a state of confusion and accompanied her to a facility of the Santo Tomé Community Medical Care System, from where she was transferred to Cullen Hospital.

The former champion was admitted to the hospital emergency room at 9:20 a.m., where she was diagnosed with confusional syndrome associated with loss of mobility throughout her entire left side. Various tests, including CT scans and an MRI, confirmed that she had suffered a left-sided ischemic stroke.

Since her hospitalization, the former champion's clinical progress has been slow and complicated. A week ago, she underwent emergency surgery due to increased intracranial pressure that was threatening her vital functions. She underwent a decompressive craniectomy, a procedure to reduce the cerebral edema that caused the stroke.