Boxing: Price Control Vital As British Team Suffer Mixed Fortunes

The peculiar trauma of amateur boxing - a sport in which the anticipation of a tough draw, making the weight and praying for some decent judging can drain the enthusiasm of the most optimistic performer - does not seem to touch David Price.

For a big man, all 6ft 8in of him, he does not strike the casual observer as worthy of his nickname, Dynamite. In conversation, there is little explosive about the Great Britain team captain and medal aspirant in the super-heavyweight division at these Olympics.

Price, who takes on the tough, squat Russian Islam Timurziev in the Workers' Gymnasium in Beijing tonight, is quietly spoken, calm and respectful. He will, of course, be expected to abandon decorum and try to get the British boxing odyssey back on track after a couple of disappointments, but Price will not abandon his discipline.

He leads not so much from the front as from above, and has the unerring respect of his little troupe of six scallywags, three of whom have already come through their first-round examinations - Billy Joe and Bradley Saunders, and James DeGale - and two of whom have been eliminated in startlingly contrasting fashions, Frankie Gavin and Joe Murray.

Coincidentally, Murray and Gavin take nutritional advice from Ricky Hatton's bodybuilding expert, Kerry Kayes. Despite the input of that expertise, both struggled with their weight in the lead-up to these Games, Gavin failing to beat the scales at the pre-tournament camp in Macau; Murray coping with the bantamweight limit then losing yesterday on points in a controversial exit against China's Yu Gu.

The pressure is on the captain to restore confidence. "I'm reasonably confident," said the team coach, Terry Edwards, "David is very, very confident. He's up against the European champion and world bronze medalist. But David, over the past year or so, has got much stronger and mobile.

"It's not going to be an easy bout, that's for sure. But, if David gets his tactics right and boxes the way he's been boxing, he has a good chance. You can't always be sure of keeping the strong Russian away and he's going to have to not only handle the long-range stuff but fight him on the inside as well. There will be times when he won't be able to keep him away, and he's going to have to be able to work inside."

Edwards said he had recently watched again tape of the Russian's quarter-final win over the American Michael Hunter at the world championships in Chicago last November, a bout in which Timurziev aggravated a shoulder injury and faded badly in the last round.

"We've got [Timurziev] on video," Edwards said, "and we've tried to keep [Price] calm. I've got to say, he's very calm at the moment. We'll have another look at that video before the bout and study it in detail."

Timurziev is a throwback eastern bloc heavy hitter, rumbling forward behind a tight guard and rarely changing his pace. To beat him, Price, eight inches taller and with a decided reach advantage, will try to put his jab in the Russian's face until that proves an inadequate deterrent.

As Edwards says, it is then that the Liverpudlian will have to go into the trenches. It will be ugly. "People are already writing me off but that's to my advantage," Price says. "I may have been the last to qualify, but this guy is going to be easy to hit.

"He's 6ft tall, a powerhouse who stalks opponents. But my defence has improved inside a lot. The key will be if I can soak up punches when he gets to me, which he is going to do. It's whether or not I can handle him, but I won't actually know until the night.

"I've seen a lot of him but he has the style I prefer to box, one of those who comes forward and lets his shots go. He's there to be hit but he's proved he can hit himself. If I lose, all the hard work over the past four years will have been for nothing. I don't fear him, I don't fear anyone. To be the best I must beat the best."

Price is the sort of dyed-in-the-wool amateur who keeps coming back after disappointment, because he loves the sport. He did not qualify for Athens in 2004 and he left his qualification for these Olympics later than any of the team.

Price had to beat the 2006 world junior champion Cristian Ciocan of Romania in the second European qualifying tournament in Athens earlier this year to make the squad he now leads. He won 15-6, and his spirits and confidence lifted dramatically.

He is a transformed boxer, bringing more power to his long right than in the past, and moving with more efficiency in and out of the hitting zone. Price might never be the heavyweight professional promoters drool over but he is a vital force in this Great Britain team - and should beat the Russian.