Olympics: 'what Happened This Morning Has Cost Frankie Gavin a Million Pounds'

Kerry Kayes, the sports nutritionist who appeared to have salvaged Frankie Gavin's hopes of making the lightweight limit, has described the subsequent failure of the British amateur boxing team to help their fighter in his now lost battle with the scales as "criminal" and "devastating". Gavin is due to return home today from the British training camp in Macau, a day before the Olympic Games actually begin in Beijing.

Kayes told the Guardian that, "it's absolutely criminal that Frankie has not made the weight after all he's been through. I got a text this morning, telling me the bad news. I could hardly believe it because it's simply criminal that he's not going to the Olympics. I can only guess that some real errors have been made and that Frankie has been let down."

Gavin had revealed to the Guardian last month that he was distressed about his struggle to make the 60kg mark and had asked, despairingly, "how can I shift any more weight?" The emergency assistance of Kayes, the former body-builder who has overcome Ricky Hatton's infamous ballooning of weight between fights with astonishing results, transformed Gavin's mood. Just over two weeks ago the 22 year-old world champion amateur boxer from Birmingham suggested that "Kerry Kayes is sorting me out good and proper. I'm going to make it."

As the favorite for the lightweight title in Beijing, Gavin was one of Britain's strongest contenders to win an Olympic gold medal. "It's so cruel for Frankie and I'm devastated for him," Kayes said. "My heart could bleed for the kid. How would you feel if you were in his shoes? What happened this morning has cost Frankie Gavin a million pounds. That's how much they were saying an Olympic gold medal would have been worth to him if he turned pro straight after the Games. And it's just been ruined now.

"I think it's even harder for Frankie to bear because, once I came on board about six weeks ago, we turned it round. Frankie and his trainer since he was a kid, Tommy Chaney, were delighted by the way I got his weight down and the last time I spoke to them they were in great spirits."

Last month, however, Kayes had warned that, "My help ends when Frankie gets on the plane. I know I could help him a lot nutritionally in China but, in their wisdom, the British amateur boxing people don't seem to want me there. That's their right and I hope it works out for them and, especially, for Frankie."

Kayes now argues that his expert presence in Macau would have ensured Gavin's participation in the Olympics. "I guarantee that I would have got Frankie Gavin to make the weight. I guarantee it. Listen, I'm the guy who starts working with Ricky Hatton when he rolls into the gym, weighing 185 pounds, and I get him to shift 45 pounds in time to make the weight every time before every fight. And the crucial thing is that I do it completely safely and legally so that he when he gets down to 140 pounds he is as strong as ever.

"Frankie is a different story. He's been flogged a little too hard in competitions across Europe and his body needed more time to recover from constantly boiling down to make the weight. But there was no problem we could not have overcome with the knowledge I've got – and the desire Frankie had to make the weight. We were bang on cue when he left the UK and so that's why I was shocked to hear that he's now coming home."

If Kayes stresses that he can only make a "guesstimate" at this stage, without having spoken to Gavin himself, he believes that some catastrophic mistakes have been made since the British team arrived in Macau. "I might be proved wrong but my best guesstimate is his failure to make the weight could be down to water retention. You know how your feet swell up when you take your shoes off on a long flight? That's down to water retention. It's basic stuff but, if I'd flown with him, I would have drained Frankie's system to get all that excess water out as soon as we got there.

"My fear is that they didn't do that and to clear the weight caused by the water retention they might well have got him to stop drinking. That's when you get real problems because if the body is not getting the fluids it needs then it holds onto the weight and the whole system is affected. As I say, I'm only guessing here but I can't see what else would have made him miss the weight when things were going so well with me."

The short-sighted decision of the British Amateur Boxing Association not to accept Kayes's offer to travel with the Olympic team to Beijing has been costly – both in terms of their prospective medal haul as well as for Gavin himself. It is difficult to imagine that the boxer, who has been courted by leading fight promoters in Britain and America, including Oscar de la Hoya, will now choose to remain within the amateur ranks.

As he told the Guardian last month, he has harbored serious misgivings about the amateur authorities for some time. "The ABA are a joke, really," Gavin said. "They don't do nothing for you. They give you so many promises but they just don't keep 'em. So I can't see me staying amateur unless something changes."

Despite British amateur boxing having been hailed, most often by itself, as "the new Cuba", Gavin admitted that he felt let down by the ABA. "Yeah, I do. We go to tournaments in Albania and the Albanians are there in tracksuits and we're in our own clothes. UK Sport bought us some tracksuits the other day. It was only £25 and it didn't look that good but at least we had a tracksuit – instead of nothing. If anybody should be thanked it's UK Sport and lottery funding. The ABA are full of promises but they don't happen."

The Olympic promise of Frankie Gavin now lies in ruins. His only immediate hope and consolation is that heavyweight promoters in professional boxing, like de la Hoya, had stressed privately that they would still be interested in signing him even if he failed to fight in Beijing. Britain's best amateur boxer will still be desolate. "The Olympics have been all I've been dreaming of for the last four years," he said last month. "My whole life since then has been one long sacrifice for this moment."

That sacrifice, today, will feel more like a bitterly squandered opportunity for a gifted and sensitive fighter who had yearned to outstrip his future rival, Amir Khan, by winning an Olympic gold medal.