Olympic loser too quick for Harrison

Audley Harrison likes to compare winning the world heavyweight championship to scaling Everest, and in response to criticism of his own self-mapped assault on the summit he observes: "There are many ways to the top of the mountain."

Indeed there are, but while Harrison is still striking out from base camp against giant American Julius Long at Wembley Conference Centre tomorrow, the Italian he beat on the way to Olympic gold 19 months ago will tonight reach halfway to the summit.

Paolo Vidoz had his nose so comprehensively smashed by Harrison's first blow in the semi-finals of the superheavyweight division in Sydney that his mother made a televised appeal for her son to quit such a brutal sport.

It fell on deaf ears. Like Harrison, Vidoz harboured an ambition to reach new heights in professional boxing and he chose the path that many felt his conqueror should have followed, the one that led to the school of hard knocks in the United States.

While Harrison, making only his fourth appearance as a paid fighter against Long, remains at least a summer away from challenging for the British heavyweight championship, 31-year-old Vidoz has exploited his American training to remain unbeaten in nine fights. His reward comes tonight when he faces Alessandro Guni for the Italian title.

It must be said that Vidoz has escaped the injuries that have slowed Harrison's progress. But while Harrison insisted on feeling his own way up the slippery slopes, Vidoz engaged an experienced guide - American promoter-Lou DiBella. DiBella is the former-head of boxing for the HBO television station where he was an influential figure in building the careers of British world champions Lennox Lewis and Naseem Hamed.