Lazzerini is ready to give his all for gold in Australia

Scottish boxer Sean Lazzerini will be aiming high when he flies to Australia for the 2018 Commonwealth Games. The 20-year-old Glaswegian captured gold at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa in 2015 and is looking to emulate that feat in Australia in April.

Lazzerini, who fights out the Bellahouston Boxing Club, insists he will be in the best possible shape in preparation for the best possible outcome.

“I am going there to put in 100 per cent in every performance and training session from now on until the Games,” he said. “I will be 100 per cent prepared. There will be no excuses. It will be the best Sean Lazzerini who could go there.

“I know quite a few of the opponents and they are all beatable. A gold medal is definitely a shout. But I won’t be thinking about a gold medal, I will be thinking of who I need to fight first and take it from there.

“It is one of the best things that has happened to me. I am going to grab it with both hands and enjoy every second of it.”

Lazzerini had to come through a pressurised boxoff against Boris Crighton for the -81kg place in December to be able to make his Commonwealth Games debut.

“I was really nervous when I was first told about it,” he said. “I thought I deserved to go already but I had to deal with it. I used it as an opportunity to show what I could do and prove that I was the one who should be going and I did.”

Lazzerini has plenty of Scottish inspiration to drive him on in the coming months, although his influences also lie further afield.

World title prospect Josh Taylor won gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, as did Charlie Flynn in the lightweight division. Lazzerini said: “Josh Taylor, he will be a world champion and he has taken the same route, Commonwealth Games and all that stuff. Charlie Flynn as well, that’s what you aspire to. But Saul Alvarez [Mexico] and Roberto Duran [Panama] are my favourite boxers.”