GALDEN SHOT
Yafai’s gold brings to mind Prince Nas... ‘But right now I just want to have a burger!’
GALAL YAFAI will walk in his idol Prince Naseem Hamed’s footsteps after adding another chapter to a remarkable fighting family’s success story.
The Birmingham flyweight landed Team GB’s first boxing gold at Tokyo 2020 with a convincing points win over Filipino street vendor Carlo Paalam.
In the closing rounds of the 20th century, Prince Naseem – born in Yorkshire of Yemeni descent – was a featherweight headline act whose walk-on razzmatazz often lasted longer than his explosive fights.
Yafai is the latest standard bearer for his ancestors on the Arabian Peninsula – and now one of three champions from the same household.
Eldest brother Kal Yafai was the WBA superflyweight champion for four years, and often did not get the credit he deserved, while fellow sibling Gamal won the European superbantamweight title.
Now they have become the first family to produce world, European and Olympic champions.
And although he is in no rush to turn pro, Yafai’s dynamic style would be a worthy successor to Hamed’s showboating and ringcraft.
“Growing up, he was my idol,” said Yafai, 28, Britain’s first men’s flyweight gold medallist at the Games since Terry Spinks (right) in 1956. “I was allowed to stay up and watch Prince Naseem’s fights.
“Being an Olympic champion, and then to be world champion like him, would be something else, but right now I don’t want to think about boxing.
“I want to rest, take it all in, I just want to eat some food – maybe a nice Five Guys, a few chips, burgers, nothing healthy.”
Yafai’s brothers joined him on a Zoom call after his 4-1 victory on the judges’ scorecards, which was never in doubt after he dumped Paalam on the canvas in the opening round.
Paalam once scavenged landfill sites in the Philippines to sell recycled metals, but an Olympic silver medal is by far the biggest treasure he has discovered.
Yafai’s backstory is also unglamorous – he used to work on the shop floor at the giant
Land Rover plant in Solihull but found his assortment of menial tasks uninspiring.
He said: “If they had told me in that car factory that I was going to be an Olympic champion, I’d have laughed at them. But to be fair, [head coach] Rob McCracken and all the GB boxing coaches have been telling me, ‘Galal, you’ll be the Olympic champion’, and I’d just say, ‘Nah, they’re just saying that to be nice to me’ – but they were right.
“If I go back to the plant now and show off
my medal, do you think they might give me a Land Rover for free? I’m not sure I can afford one.”
Despite the best boxing medal haul for 101 years – six in all – Team GB’s contingent from the noble art had not managed to turn any of their precious metals into gold until Yafai (left) came to the party.
His triumph meant the Brits have won at least one gold medal at each of the last four Olympics – a tribute to McCracken’s work since he took over.