Lauren Price wins boxing gold to complete switch from football

 

Lauren Price won gold for Team GB in the woman’s middleweight final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

The Welsh wonder claimed Britain’s 22nd gold on the final day of the Games with a dominant victory over China’s Li Qian in the women’s middleweight final.

All-round sporting phenomenon Price is a four-time kickboxing world champion, won 52 football caps for Wales and turned down the chance of a career in taekwondo.

She settled on boxing – and it proved the right decision after the 27-year-old became Team GB’s second boxing champion of the Tokyo Games following Galal Yafai’s superb men’s flyweight win on Saturday.

Price controlled the fight from the first bell against Li on Sunday, taking the first round unanimously and claiming the second on four of the five judges’ scorecards.

Price, who was raised by her grandparents since she was three days old, becomes the first Welsh woman to win Olympic boxing gold, and the second British female after double-flyweight champion Nicola Adams.

Her triumph capped the best performance by a British boxing team at the Olympics in 101 years.

And it meant Team GB equalled their medal haul from London 2012, with 22 golds, 21 silver and 22 bronze making for a total of 65.

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Had the Olympics been held last year as planned, Price’s grandfather would have been able to watch her make history. Derek had travelled the world with him before he passed away last November.

And following her triumph, Price fought back the tears in a television interview as she spoke about what the victory meant to herself and her family.

“I can’t put it into words, it’s a dream come true,” she told the BBC. “I’ve got to pinch myself.

“It’s taken years of hard work, and it shows if you have a dream and you work hard, you can achieve anything. I’m over the moon.