BEIJING // Once believed to have more bulk than skill, British super-heavyweight David Price has matured nicely and is just two wins away from winning an Olympic gold medal. The biggest man in the boxing competition, Price, who stands 201cm tall and weighs a hefty 110kg, has destroyed everything in his path to advance to the semi-finals and make sure of at least a bronze medal. It was a very different story four years ago, when the boxer from Liverpool, northwest England, failed to qualify for the Athens Games.
"Four years ago he was a boy in a man's body," said the British coach Terry Edwards. "He's come along tremendously since then." Working harder than everybody else in training, the 25-year-old Price became the team's captain in Beijing and their top prospect since world lightweight champion Frankie Gavin pulled out before the draw for failing to make his weight. Edwards, who had a difficult relationship with Audley Harrison but still guided him to Olympic super-heavyweight gold in 2000 in Sydney, made no secret of the fact that he preferred Price.
"I think David is more mobile, has a good boxing brain and a big heart," Edwards said. "Over the last 18 months this guy just got stronger and stronger." Price started his run in Beijing by outclassing Russia's Islam Timurziev, ranked number one in his weight class, and then moved past Jaroslav Jaksto, whom he shook several times in the first round before the Lithuanian retired with a thigh injury.
"Every time I hit him I knew I'd sickened him," Price said after that fight, summing up just how powerful he had looked in the ring. Coming next is the Italian world champion Roberto Cammarelle, an opponent Price would have faced in the quarter-finals of last year's World Championships in Chicago had he not been ruled out with a broken hand. "That was one of the low points of my career," said Price. "I knew I would meet him here at some stage and now it's going to happen. I think I can definitely beat him."
*Reuters