Why was Khan the only representative at the Olympics in 2004?

[Stuarty]

Does anyone know why this was? It seems to be a massive factor now for the amateurs but only 11 years ago it would seem as if nobody bothered? I've always been a massive boxing fan but only have started taking note of the unpaid ranks the last couple of years. I boxed junior amateur myself and hated the scoring system so never really took notice to be honest!

[Chris W 1982]

He was the only one that qualified. It was a disastrous qualifying campaign.

[Bleak]

Who were our squad at the time?

[reggaereggae]

Who were our squad at the time?

Good question.... It was a disaster... I thought Audley Harrison, according to boxing lore, single-handedly saved amateur boxing in the UK at the previous Olympics.

[bripez]

Was going to say, I think that only Audley and Courtney Fry qualified for the Sydney Olympics.

It actually could have been none as Khan almost never went.

At 17 he was considered too young by tha ABAE and was not sent to any qualifying tournaments. The Khan family then said that if they did not send him to the tournaments then he would represent Pakistan instead.

[gobbles]

Who were our squad at the time?

David Price and Darran Langley were closest to joining him. Langley was in Athens as a reserve, Price lost to Cammarelle at Euro Champs quarter-finals, where a medal would have seen him qualify.

Rest of Eng/Wal/Sco teams included Darren Barker, Gary Sykes, Tony Davis, Don Broadhurst, David Dolan, Neil Perkins, Ricardo Samms, Nathan Brough, Matthew Edmonds, Darren Edwards, Kevin Evans, Craig McEwan, Kenny Anderson, Mark Hastie, Mo Nasir, Gareth Couch.

Ireland only qualified one boxer too, Andy Lee and they had Egan, McCloskey, Lindsay, Rogan and Hyland in their team

[mickey1975]

Who were our squad at the time?

Good question.... It was a disaster... I thought Audley Harrison, according to boxing lore, single-handedly saved amateur boxing in the UK at the previous Olympics.

The good Audley had done hadn't had by time to kick in by the time of the 2004 qualifiers.

[handsofstone]

Who were our squad at the time?

Good question.... It was a disaster... I thought Audley Harrison, according to boxing lore, single-handedly saved amateur boxing in the UK at the previous Olympics.

Thats what ive been led to believe too

[Bleak]

Who were our squad at the time?

David Price and Darran Langley were closest to joining him. Langley was in Athens as a reserve, Price lost to Cammarelle at Euro Champs quarter-finals, where a medal would have seen him qualify.

Rest of Eng/Wal/Sco teams included Darren Barker, Gary Sykes, Tony Davis, Don Broadhurst, David Dolan, Neil Perkins, Ricardo Samms, Nathan Brough, Matthew Edmonds, Darren Edwards, Kevin Evans, Craig McEwan, Kenny Anderson, Mark Hastie, Mo Nasir, Gareth Couch.

Ireland only qualified one boxer too, Andy Lee and they had Egan, McCloskey, Lindsay, Rogan and Hyland in their team

Great knowledge there mate

[gobbles]

Who were our squad at the time?

Good question.... It was a disaster... I thought Audley Harrison, according to boxing lore, single-handedly saved amateur boxing in the UK at the previous Olympics.

The good Audley had done hadn't had by time to kick in by the time of the 2004 qualifiers.

That's true to an extent, but it was actually after Khan won silver that big money was thrown at amateur boxing. After that, the GB HQ was built at Sheffield and boxers were able to become full-time.
You've got to remember, only 2 GB boxers qualified for Sydney and one qualified in Atlanta, David Burke, though another one got in as a reserve there

[stevedoc]

It used to be rare for GB to get boxers in the Olympics we just wasn't good enough .

[expe]

Good question.... It was a disaster... I thought Audley Harrison, according to boxing lore, single-handedly saved amateur boxing in the UK at the previous Olympics.

The good Audley had done hadn't had by time to kick in by the time of the 2004 qualifiers.

That's true to an extent, but it was actually after Khan won silver that big money was thrown at amateur boxing. After that, the GB HQ was built at Sheffield and boxers were able to become full-time.
You've got to remember, only 2 GB boxers qualified for Sydney and one qualified in Atlanta, David Burke, though another one got in as a reserve there

The EIS centre in Sheffield was built before the Athens Olympics, didn't have anything to do with Khan or Audley. Audley winning gold increased the funding, but the effects of that don't come immediately, same with Ireland and their High Performance Unit, that started pre-Athens too but it wasn't until a few years later that they started to win medals regularly, now outside of Russia and Cuba they've a good argument for being the strongest country. Then with a home Olympics coming up every sport started to get money thrown at it in the hope of a successful Olympics, which obviously paid off in the end.

[sweetscience]

Perkins was the reserve not Langley... Langley went as khans friend I believe

Perkins was actually gloved up at one point I heard

[gobbles]

The EIS centre in Sheffield was built before the Athens Olympics, didn't have anything to do with Khan or Audley. Audley winning gold increased the funding, but the effects of that don't come immediately, same with Ireland and their High Performance Unit, that started pre-Athens too but it wasn't until a few years later that they started to win medals regularly, now outside of Russia and Cuba they've a good argument for being the strongest country. Then with a home Olympics coming up every sport started to get money thrown at it in the hope of a successful Olympics, which obviously paid off in the end.

The EIS was built in 2002, but it wasn't until 2009 that GB Boxing built a gym there, prior to that they were based at Crystal Palace. Boxing received a 337% funding boost from UK Sport at the start of 2006 as a direct result of Khan's success.

[Coco]

Lottery funding made a big difference

[reggaereggae]

It used to be rare for GB to get boxers in the Olympics we just wasn't good enough .

Not strictly true. I'm not sure when qualifying for the Olympics became a necessity but certainly in 1988 Seoul there was no need. But then they had to introduce it when there were too many entrants. Anyone know the date?

[alfiemulleno]

I may be wrong but I'm sure qualification for Olympic Boxing changed some years after the break up of the Soviet Union 1991 resulting in an extra 15 Nations to International Boxing,

[reggaereggae]

I may be wrong but I'm sure qualification for Olympic Boxing changed some years after the break up of the Soviet Union 1991 resulting in an extra 15 Nations to International Boxing,

Cool be right......sounds likely

[mickey1975]

I may be wrong but I'm sure qualification for Olympic Boxing changed some years after the break up of the Soviet Union 1991 resulting in an extra 15 Nations to International Boxing,

Most of them are superb amateurs as well...

[bripez]

I may be wrong but I'm sure qualification for Olympic Boxing changed some years after the break up of the Soviet Union 1991 resulting in an extra 15 Nations to International Boxing,

That is what I thought.

I think that we pretty much sent the ABA champions at each weight - we sent one, and Russia sent one etc.

And we think that the current qualification is tough - imagine what it took to qualify for "Russia" in the past ? - I bet they had boxers who could have taken multiple medals in each weight.

[alfiemulleno]

I may be wrong but I'm sure qualification for Olympic Boxing changed some years after the break up of the Soviet Union 1991 resulting in an extra 15 Nations to International Boxing,

That is what I thought.

I think that we pretty much sent the ABA champions at each weight - we sent one, and Russia sent one etc.[/quote
That's correct

[Crease]

Why was Khan the only representative at the Olympics in 2004?

For me, it's two reasons:

1. Boxing wasn't as popular back then.
Mainly due to the lack of success that British (and Irish fighters) were having at the amateur level, as such there was a perception that there wasn't many "good young fighters coming through" - that was the sort of mentality back then.
I would also add that their wasn't a great lot of British success in the professional ranks back then either (2002-04)
Nigel Benn & Chris Eubank were long gone...
Naz had a comeback fight, but then seemed to disappear...
Johnny Nelson was a World Champion but his career was winding down and never seemed to capture the public's imagination the way that the above guys did...
Joe Calzaghe was a World Champion but he has not yet defeated Jeff Lacy and gained the credibility that he so desired...

2. The Audley Harrison effect.
There was not a great amount of optimism due to Audley's lack of progress in his career. He promised so much, yet delivered so little. Then he attempted to pull off a farce of comical proportions when he fought for the WBF Heavyweight title, then upon winning (beating an unknown called Richel Hersisia) proclaimed himself a "Champion of the World".

That definitely dented the public's confidence back in March 2003.

In general, it was a pretty poor outlook for the British boxing landscape of the time. Which would also explain the lack of investment provided for the sport.

Actually as I think about it, I believe that it was Ricky Hatton's tremendous victory over Kostya Tszyu in June 2005 which inspired British boxers to progress onward and was the catalyst for an upsurge in their fortunes.
Calzaghe would go on to beat Lacy, Haye came to the fore to become a World Heavyweight Champion, Amir Khan became a World Champion...

These days, we have any amount of fighters who are or have been World Champions... And in my book, it all started with Hatton's hard-fought win over Tszyu.

[gobbles]

First Olympic qualification was 1992. Qualified a near full team that year, but didn't get more than 2 again until 2008

[dbf]

Langley was taken as a buddy for Khan. That's true. Great boxer Langley. Him being padded by Dave Pocknell was a thing of beuty.

Harrison, then Khan led to a great Beijing but Pocknell and Edwards set the blueprint for the current set up. The big big funding came after Beijing and the set up post Beijing was massive compared to before.

People quickly forget what an achievement khans silver was. He was a boy, barely a senior, dazzling against some of the best men in his weight. Phenomenal. He had no "team gb" with him really unlike the 8 at Beijing and the 10(?) at London. He was on his own with coaches as a 17 yr old.