Jeffries joins Price on the boxing medals podium

Posted: Tuesday 19th August 2008 | 17:05

TONY JEFFRIES guaranteed Britain a second boxing medal with a display that was every bit as convincing as his first round win was lacklustre.

Hungary's Imre Szello - who lost a previous meeting with Jeffries by an equally convincing margin at the European Championships - never stood a chance as he was outpointed 10-2 in a one-sided quarter-final.

Jeffries had looked less than impressive in his previous bout, only advancing on the countback system.

He vowed to lift his game and he left nothing to chance against an opponent who was both offered little, with tactics that were both one-dimensional and predictable.

The light-heavyweight gave Szello a standing eight in the final round and coasted through the rounds on cruise control, never looking threatened and building up his points tally with ease.

"This is a dream come true. It's everything I've trained for - those cold early morning runs and the hard sessions in the gym have paid off," said Jeffries, who will now face Ireland's Kenny Egan, a bronze medalist at the 2006 European Championships, in the last four

"We worked hard on our tactics for this fight. It helped that I'd boxed him before and I knew he could be dangerous.

"I'm very, very proud to be British and to win a medal for us is unbelievable.

"Contributing to the amazing medal tally is the proudest moment of my life but I'm not thinking about just getting a medal at the moment - I want the gold."

Szello later blamed the judges for his failure but British coach Terry Edwards was never in any doubt that the 23-year old Jeffries - a quarter-finalist at last year's World Championships - would progress.

And he claimed he'd done all his homework on what was needed to beat Egan.

"We've got about 2,500 bouts on video covering all the people our boxers might fight here. We know a little about Egan already and we'll be well prepared for him," he said.

On the other side of the draw home hope Zhang Xiaoping had the Workers' Gymnasium rocking as he defeated Algeria's Abdelhafid Benchabla on points.

Kazakhstan's Yerkebulan Shynaliyev also looks a threat - he was beating quarter-final opponent Dzhakhon Kurbanov with ease when the Tajikistan fighter was disqualified in the third round.

Jeffries progression is good news for Britain's boxing team - who started the Games on the backfoot, following the withdrawal of main medal hope Frankie Gavin.

He joins super heavyweight David Price in the semi-finals while James DeGale fights Bakhtiyar Artayv in today's middleweight quarter-finals with a guaranteed bronze the reward for a victory.

JAMES TONEY in Beijing