A shattered Harry Garside has shared an inspirational message after his heartbreaking Olympic boxing loss to Richard Kovacs in Paris.

Seeking to become the first Australian to win an Olympic boxing gold medal following his breakthrough lightweight bronze in Toyko, Garside earlier cut short his media interview after breaking down.

After a first-round bye, the 27-year-old fell to Kovacs of Hungary by unanimous decision on Monday night in their round of 16 clash, with Garside saying he’d let the country down.

Garside was inconsolable after his loss, saying he felt like a failure.

With his voice faltering, the deep-thinking Garside said he felt he’d been “too nice” to himself leading into the Games and feared what lay ahead in terms of his mental state.

The Victorian later posted a video to Instagram saying the 20 years he had dedicated to winning gold was not wasted.

“I’ve been beating myself up for the past couple of hours since I fought,” Garside said.

“I had a couple of screams and a couple of cries … and I had this realisation that absolutely this sucks. We all hate failing. We all hate not succeeding. We all hate shooting for the stars and falling on our face,” he added.

“But I had this realisation that I went on this two-decade journey to try and get that gold medal and yes, I didn’t get that gold medal, but I’ve become my own friend in that journey”.

Garside said he initially had extremely low self worth and he thought success was the thing that would bring him his respect.

“We all love success. We all love winning … but I’m so grateful that over the two decades the thing I’ve taken from this is becoming my own friend and being kind to myself,” he said.  

The news in the boxing ring was better for Garside’s teammate, Teremoana Teremoana, who won by knockout in the first round of his super heavyweight round of 16 meeting with Ukrainian Dmytro Lovchynski.

Teremoanae became the first Australian to win an Olympic fight in that division, and will next face Uzbekistan’s defending champion Bakhodir Jalolov.

It was a bright moment on an otherwise devastating day for the boxing contingent.

Earlier at North Paris Arena, Tyla McDonald made a similar early exit from the women’s 60kg division, losing by unanimous decision to Ecuador’s Maria Jose Espinoza Palacios.

The Victorian 21-year-old, making her Olympic debut, said she struggled to overcome nerves as well as the relentless jabs from her rangy rival.

-with AAP