BRITAIN'S head boxing coach believes his Olympic team have the potential to be the "new Cuba" after earning seven slots for the Games in Beijing, with four of them already rated as strong gold medal contenders.
The latest to qualify for China was welterweight Billy Joe Saunders, a 19-year-old from the traveller community, whose great-grandfather was a bareknuckled fairground champion. He beat Slovak Pavol Hlavacka in a bronze medal box-off at the penultima
te European qualifying event in Pescara, Italy on Sunday, from where Khalid Yafai and James Degale had earlier qualified.
There is the possibility that Britain could earn four more berths in the final event in Athens next month – a stark contrast to four years ago when the country had only one boxer at the Athens Games – lightweight silver medallist Amir Khan. Britain's head boxing coach Terry Edwards said Khan's performance and the extra funding for the sport it inspired was the key to the country's resurgence and could help make Britain the dominant force when they host the Games in 2012.
"If we are able to keep this current structure in place and go forward as we are now, I truly believe that by the time the London Olympics come around, we will be the new Cuba of amateur boxing," said Edwards. "We are seeing a huge change in the way we are being regarded."
The Cuban team, where the cream of the country's boxing talent are required to operate in the amateur ranks, have long been the outstanding team of the Olympics.
Amateur Boxing Association chairman Keith Walters also has high hopes to Britain. "We can go to the Beijing Olympics and win three gold medals," he predicted. "Two years ago, if I'd even said we would get three qualified for Beijing you would probably have locked me up."
The full article contains 318 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
