Colchester light-middleweight boxer Lewis Richardson will become an Olympian if he wins his next fight.
Richardson will face Angel Gabriel Llanos Pérez of Puerto Rico in a boxing qualifying match for the Paris Olympics in Bangkok on Friday morning (10:30 a.m. GMT) with the winner winning a spot in this summer's Olympics.
British boxers Delicious Ollie (super heavyweight), Pat Brown (heavyweight), Charlie Davison (bantamweight), Chantelle Reid (middleweight) and Rosie Eccles (welterweight) had already qualified.
Delicious Ollie (blue) of England faces Sagar Sagar (red) of India in the men's super heavyweight boxing gold medal match (Photo by Eddie Keogh/Getty Images).
Richardson will join them with nine minutes to go, as Ireland's Aidan Walsh also beat 2021 world champion Yuri Zahariev for his third win in four days and is on the verge of qualifying in the 71kg weight class.
Walsh, who won the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, will face Zeyad Ishash of Jordan on Friday for an Olympic berth. If they lose, Richardson and Walsh will get another chance to qualify.
The four teams eliminated in the quarter-finals will face off against each other, with the winner heading to Paris. Richardson has turned out to be something of a surprise player. His debut in the 71kg category came last December, when he won gold at the Algarve Box Cup in Portugal.
Richardson competed in the 75kg weight class and won a bronze medal in the middleweight division at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham before taking 366 days off to focus on his studies.
Mr. Richardson Boxing News He spoke of his frustration at the 75kg weight class being removed from the Paris Games and how, given his height of about 6ft 3ins, he was expected to move up to the 80kg weight class to have a shot at qualifying for the Olympics.
He instead dropped down to 71 kg and won three matches in three days at the Algarve Box Cup to reach the Olympic qualifiers.
Richardson reached the final of the World Boxing Cup: GB Open in Sheffield in January in the absence of 2022 European champion Haris Akbar, who was pulled out through injury.
Richardson made an early exit from the Olympic qualifying tournament in Italy in March but the British coaching team supported him again in Bangkok.
Richardson began the bout with a unanimous points victory over Brandon “The Great” Chavez of Honduras to advance to the round of 32.
He faced Iranian Kasra Tahmasevi and won again by unanimous decision, then lost to Mozambique’s Tiago Msanga by unanimous decision to set up a final against Pérez.
British lightweight boxer Amy Broadhurst has won consecutive points matches to move two wins away from qualifying, and her next bout will be against Yeongji Oh of South Korea on Friday (3.15pm GMT).
Amy Broadhurst (Photo by Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)
