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The memories and scars that brought Galal Yafai to the edge of glory
It has been a hard road for Galal Yafai, from being the baby boxer in the family to winning a gold medal at the Olympics, and now being the main attraction in his hometown.
On Saturday, at Resorts World on the outskirts of Birmingham, Yafai defends his WBC interim flyweight title against the Mexican Francisco Rodriguez Jr. It is not an easy fight, it's a difficult fight. A real fight.
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Yafai is now 32, this will still only be his 10th professional fight, but his amateur career was long and established; he fought and lost at the Rio Olympics, and then in 13 days of glory, he won five times in Tokyo in 2021 to win a gold medal. It is arguably the best gold-medal streak in British history. Every single one of the bouts was hard; Galal fights that way.
Yafai was the youngest and smallest of three fighting brothers; that can be a constant battle. His two brothers could both really fight: Khalid went to the 2008 Olympics, won a British title and was world champion at super-flyweight; Gamal won the European and Commonwealth titles as a professional. All three brothers won international medals. Khalid was, in 2005, just the second British boxer to claim any version of a world amateur title when he won the under-17 world championship in Liverpool. They are one of the world's great fighting families.
'It's been a long journey to just get here,' Galal said. 'It's not finished yet, not even close.'
Last November, Yafai stopped former world champion Sunny Edwards in the best pairing of two British flyweights for close to 40 years. That night, he sent a fine boxer into retirement. The WBC's interim belt was the official bounty on the night, but the real prize was pride and respect.
Edwards had beaten Yafai in 2015 over three rounds and had always been critical of Yafai's selection for the Rio Olympics in 2016. When Yafai was selected, he was working at Land Rover – he was always a long, long shot for a medal in Rio. That was not the plan the men making the selection had; they had an agenda for gold in Tokyo.
Yafai hated leaving Rio without a medal in the summer of 2016, but decided to stay for one more Olympic cycle. In early March 2020, he qualified for the Tokyo Olympics, but just 14 days later, as Covid slowed the world, the Olympics were postponed, pushed back indefinitely at a cruel time of endless unknowns and sudden deaths. It looked like Yafai had lost his window, lost his chance. The delay broke a lot of fighters.
The boxing business stopped, the Olympic dream was gone in a tumble of real concerns. But Yafai decided to wait, to be patient, to keep dreaming that Olympic dream. It was not easy, and not everybody did the same. 'I had to stay and hope it happened,' said Yafai. 'I had worked so hard, I had qualified, I was ready, and then there were lonely months of waiting for news.'
The British boxers prepared in isolation, but under the relentless and watchful eye of the GB coaches. It was remote, but it worked. The squad won six medals, reaching four finals in a record haul. They had a hunger from the very start, a desire as a team to succeed.
In Tokyo, at the games of isolation and paranoia, Lauren Price and Yafai won gold. It was the old-fashioned dream ending – one that had looked in doubt. The risk of waiting and the Olympics being scrapped was very real, but Yafai and Price gambled and won. Yafai was a giant in Tokyo, unstoppable – and had the Val Barker Trophy for the best boxer been available, he would have been a real contender.
As a professional, Yafai has been moved fast, matched hard, and has gained some crucial rounds of experience. Rodriguez Jr will give him more rounds and a test. The Mexican has lost six times, mostly on the road in fights where the odds were massively stacked against him. He has lost world title fights on points in the Philippines and Japan. And three years ago, he went the full 10-round distance with Junto Nakatani, the double world champion, also in Japan. He is unbeaten in four since then and is the same age as Yafai.
'It's another fight, another test,' said Yafai. 'I'm getting closer, and this is the attitude I had in Tokyo. This is no different, it's just a fight, and then I move on.'
The top boxers all learn from the years in obscurity on the international circuit, fighting over five rounds in Kazakhstan against Cubans, winning a gold at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, getting a bad decision in Ukraine and having to box four and five times at tournaments just to get a medal.
Yafai and his brothers have those memories and those scars – now the baby in the family can go on and become a very big star in modern boxing. His two brothers will be by his side, obviously.
