Lewis Richardson won the only Olympic boxing medal for Team GB at Paris 2024 against all the odds, now he has a bright future to look forward to; Richardson outlines his professional aspirations, including his goal to headline at Colchester United's stadium
Thursday 22 August 2024 09:11, UK
All the pressure was on Lewis Richardson. Before he’d even had a chance to box at Paris 2024, he’d seen every one of his team-mates in the GB vest eliminated from the Olympic boxing competition.
Not only was he the last one left, he was a most unlikely Olympian to begin with. With his weight class axed from this cycle Richardson, a tall, thin middleweight anyway, somehow managed to drop from 75kg to 71kg and came through tough qualifying tournaments to win his place at Paris.
It was all the more remarkable then to see him box his way to a surprise bronze medal, and he could have progressed even further. His split-decision defeat to Mexico's Marco Verde was razor thin and could have gone his way.
As Team GB's only boxing medallist at the Olympics, Richardson is now getting interest from professional promoters.
"I'm grateful for the interest. I'm a hard-working individual who's put himself in a great position now to reap some of the rewards," he told Sky Sports. "I've got aspirations now of achieving big things in the professional ranks.
"GB Boxing and the World Class Performance Programme that it is has been absolutely fantastic to me. I've been on the squad now for around six years and it's brought me memories that I'll treasure for life."
One of those aspirations is, eventually, to headline at his hometown football club's stadium.
"That would be up there, which I think is achievable. Got a good following in Colchester. Hopefully that will grow throughout Essex and throughout the country. Headlining at Colchester United would be a nice little moment in my career," he said.
Pursuing a revenge bout against Verde would also appeal. "That would be amazing. There's a story there. There's definitely fights to be made," Richardson said.
"It was a really close, competitive bout. We thought we did enough but, listen, it's a subjective sport and more importantly I was proud of my performances in Paris, proud of the way I conducted myself inside and outside the ring."
American talent Omari Jones was also narrowly defeated in the other 71kg Olympic semi-final. Standing alongside the Briton on the podium, he couldn't resist telling Richardson that it should have been them in the final.
"It wasn't meant to be. That's another good one that could be made in the future but we'll see," Richardson said.
"I had a mindset shift at the back end of last year where I really wanted to focus on performance rather than results and be a bit more process-driven rather than always worrying about the results. Because unfortunately boxing's a subjective sport and decisions don't go your way when maybe they should."
He added: "I was probably one of the least favoured to go and win a medal out of the GB squad. [At light-middleweight] the level of talent is just unbelievable but I'm up there and one of the top four in the world now. Not too bad is it?
"Every division's stacked [at the Olympics] but light-middleweight in particular is absolutely stacked. You've got guys moving down from middleweight, you've got guys moving up from welterweight, it's the most popular weight by far. It was a big ask for me to medal and probably one of the more unexpected ones to medal.
"Rightly or wrongly I was the only Great Britain boxer to medal in this cycle. That being said I think the team overall can still be extremely proud of their performances because no one underperformed at this tournament. Every single bout that we lost was on a split decision and most of them on 3-2 split decisions so a real flip of the coin."
GB performance director Rob McCracken noted: "Our boxers all performed to the high standards we expect at the tournament in Paris, it is just disappointing that they did not get the rewards they deserved on the scorecards with five of them losing on the narrowest of 3-2 split decisions, which could easily have gone the other way."
Cindy Ngamba, the star of the refugee team, trains with the GB programme in Sheffield, although currently without citizenship she was denied the opportunity to box for Britain at these Games.
"A massive shout out to Cindy Ngamba, she is one of us. She doesn't go down as a Team GB medallist but she's part of our squad so a massive shout out and congratulations to her, a future superstar," Richardson said. "The GB boxers were unlucky to come away with only one medal.
"It's just a minority of people that have that Olympic experience," he added. "Although I'm the only one that walked away with a medal from Team GB, everyone worked incredibly hard to get there and I hope that they can remember the good times and remember it's an achievement just to get there."
McCracken said: "Lewis Richardson boxed superbly and showed all of his experience in one of the most competitive weight classes in the competition to secure a very well-deserved bronze medal and the whole team was thrilled to see Cindy Ngamba - who trains with us at GB Boxing and is supported in and out of the ring by our coaches and support staff - also secure a bronze and make history by becoming the first person in a history to win a medal for the Refugee Olympic Team.
"Lewis and Cindy have both done brilliantly to win an Olympic medal and it is a great reward for all of the hard work and effort that both of them have put in over many years in the GB Boxing gym."
