Lauren Price: who is the Team GB boxer at the 2021 Olympics, football career explained – when is the final?

Team GB’s Lauren Price has delivered a huge last round to win her middleweight boxing semi-final against Dutch rival Nouchka Fontijn and reach the Olympic final.

Price, who controversially beat Fontijn in the 2019 world final after an appeal, looked to be heading for a loss after she was deducted a point in round two for excessive holding.

Despite trailing on four of the five cards heading into the last round, Price turned it around to book her place in the final via split decision. She is now guaranteed to take home Great Britain's sixth boxing medal of the Games.

The Caerphilly-born Price told the BBC: “It’s pretty mad, I knew I was up against it today, we’re the best two in the world.

“We’ve faced each other a number of times and we know each other inside out, so it was whoever was better on the day. I started a little slow, but that’s when your experience comes into it – listening to my corner. I went out in the second and third round to win the fight so I’m over the moon.”

So when will the British hopeful be fighting in the final, and what happened during her semi-final?

Here is everything you need to know.

Who is Lauren Price?

Born in Wales in 1994 and brought up by her grandparents, Price is an amateur boxer, as well as a former kickboxer and footballer.

She became the first Welsh woman to win a Commonwealth Games boxing medal in 2014, when she won a bronze medal in the women's middleweight category, the same year she decided to focus on her boxing career.

Four years later she won gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Australia.

Before going full-time with boxing, Price played football for several years with Cardiff City, winning the inaugural season of the Welsh Premier Women's Football League in 2013.

She captained Wales at under-19 level, and made her senior debut in 2012, but gave up playing football in 2014 to focus on her boxing career.

What happened in the semi-final?

It was a narrow win for Price, who won the bout on just one of the five judges’ cards, but two scored the fight a draw and subsequently picked the Welsh boxer as their preferred winner, meaning she did just enough to book a gold medal bout.

It proved all the more impressive that Price should beat her rival, whom she denied in the 2019 World Championship final after a controversial appeal, despite a second round deduction for excessive holding.

Fontijn had got the better of Price in the 2018 World Championship, but the pair remained on friendly terms until their 2019 final clash, with Fontijn refusing to step on the podium to receive her silver medal.

Price looked a little unfortunate to drop the first round on three cards as she quickly found her range and settled in on the back-foot, successfully evading the majority of the much taller Fontijn’s hooks.

Price was undeterred despite her second round warning, but walked into a big left hook, leaving one of women’s boxing’s most storied rivalries – Price had lost four of the pair’s previous six meetings – to go into the third and final round to determine a place in the Olympic final.

It was Price who rose to the occasion, celebrating the verdict in her favour with a roar of delight.

Fontijn confirmed her decision to retire after the semi-final bout, and Price said: “I had to stop looking at my phone because of the tweets reminding me of the number of times we have faced each other.

“I respect her a lot, she’s a world-class fighter and we know each other inside-out. It was always going to be that close. She just told me she has decided to retire and I wish her a happy retirement.”

When is the final?

Price must now re-focus on going all the way against China’s Li Qian, who beat Zenfira Magomedalieva of the Russian Olympic Committee in the second semi-final, and whom she has never faced.

“It has been a dream of mine to get to the Olympic games, to become an Olympian, and to get a medal, I can’t quite believe it,” said Price. “I am into the final now and it is a dream come true. I am not stopping now – my aim is to win that gold. I am going to give it my all.”

The women’s middleweight final is expected to take place on the final day of the Games – Sunday 8 August – between 6am and 8am UK time.

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