Khan the young lord of the ring

13 April 2012

Amir Khan today celebrated an historic medal-winning victory in the Olympic boxing ring by insisting his best is yet to come.

At just 17 years of age Britain's only boxing representative here became his sport's youngest Olympic medallist since Floyd Patterson in 1952 when he stopped lightweight quarterfinal rival Jong Sub Baik of Korea 23 seconds from the end of the first round.

Khan is now guaranteed a bronze medal even if he loses his semi-final on Friday against Serik Yeleuov of Kazakhstan.

But the teenager who is now without a rival for the unofficial title of the best prospect to emerge from these Games claimed: "I can perform even better as the competition goes on.

Afterwards Baik's coach In-Suk Oh gave an indication of Khan's impact at these Olympics when he said: "This boy is unbeatable. Khan will be considered the memory of the Games."

Khan reacted in a more modest fashion, underlining his impressive maturity for one so young. "It is a great achievement to win a bronze medal at my age," he said. "You can't really expect any more from a 17-year-old. But now I've got that bronze medal the pressure is off me and for the other fights I'll go up in the ring more relaxed, calm and cool headed.

"I'm happy with a medal of any colour, but I'm sure I can go on and, hopefully, win the final."

Anyone who has seen Khan perform inside the Peristeri Boxing Hall wouldn't put that beyond him even if he were to contest the gold medal with reigning Olympic and world champion Mario Kindelan, the Cuban veteran generally reckoned to be amateur boxing's best pound-forpound exponent.

Having beaten local hero Marios Kaperonis of Greece, and outclassed European senior champion Dimitar Stilianov of Bulgaria for a place in the last eight, Khan surpassed himself against Baik.

It took him barely half a minute to work out the Korean's attacking style and then send his opponent staggering to the canvas with a hard right cross.

Baik had hardly recovered after taking a count of eight before a barrage of blows to his head protector forced the referee to stop the one-sided affair.

Khan said: "I knew that I could beat him because he had slow feet and slow hands. He was made for me to catch easy and get my points quick, so I used that to my advantage and it worked."

The Bolton teenager, already world junior champion, now steps into the unknown against Yeleuov. But that doesn't worry him or national coach Terry Edwards.

Edwards said: "We don't know that much about Yeleuov, but then we did not know that much about the Korean. We've got the Kazakhstani's fights here on video tape and we'll work off them just like we did with the Korean."

At Helsinki, 52 years ago, Patterson was one month younger than Khan when he took the middleweight gold.

The American went on to be acclaimed a boxing legend, knocking out Archie Moore at the age of 21 to become the youngest holder of the world heavyweight title, and then beating the great Ingemar Johansson of Sweden two times in three dramatic fights.

On the evidence seen so far, the inescapable conclusion is that a new legend is being born in Khan.

MORE ABOUT

Athletics, Track And Field

Khan the young lord of the ring

Read More