Harrison the good guy delivers

Audley Harrison one of the best fighters at this Olympic boxing tournament last night and is one win away from a bronze medal - but it wasn't as pretty as he would have liked.

He was 8-6 down in the fourth round when he stopped the Russian Alexey Lezin and he knows it was his power that has got him through to the quarter-finals this Wednesday. There he meets the strong, well-organised Ukrainian, Oleksii Mazikin, who outpointed the New Zealander Angus Whare-Shelford, nephew of the great All Black Wayne 'Buck' Shelford.

Harrison started brightly, under instructions from the Great Britain team coach Ian Irwin, who said, 'We recognise we need to be quick out of the blocks here. When the judges fall into a scoring pattern, they tend to stick with it.'

Nevertheless, Lezin led 1-0 after one round and was 3-2 down in the second when cautioned, giving Harrison a 5-2 cushion. The Russian worked his way back to level terms with a series of heavy, unmissable uppercuts and led 6-5 going into the final round.

'I had to give Audley a bit of a kick up the backside at the start of the fourth,' Irwin said, 'and he responded very well.'

You could say that.

Lezin looked as if he was winning it with clean power punches and led 7-5, then 8-6, before he was stunned by a left hook and wobbled, still standing, for an eight count. Harrison went after him and had him in trouble, out on his feet practically, for his second count, and the referee judged him unfit to continue.

In the professional game, it might have appeared a hard decision. This, though, is the unpaid and infuriatingly inconsistent amateur version of the business, which Harrison hopes to leave behind with a gold medal next weekend.

He will need to be at his very best to take the prize, especially if he has to tangle with the Cuban Alexis Rubalcaba Polleda, who knocked his opponent, a German soldier called Cenigz Koc, unconscious earlier in the evening. That is extremely rare in the amateurs.

To Harrison's credit, he went in against one of the tournament's favoured boxers and did what he had to do under pressure.

'He was definitely hurt,' Harrison said later. 'It was a left hook. He was holding me on the inside and that's why he got a public warning.

'I felt I was always going to catch up with him, though, with short clean shots, left crosses.

'I tried to keep to what we've been working on, trying to move my head and countering. 'This guy was one of the favourites, European champion. I wanted a test in the first contest, and it was a tough one. But we've got a long way to go yet.'

He's a buzzing presence in the Olympic village and came to this fight in typically upbeat mood.

'I saw Steve Redgrave and the boys, and I watched the interview afterwards, and I got a big buzz off that. We can win, we can be great, we can win gold. That gave me a boost.'

He had a celebrity audience to play to, as well - which he likes. Princess Anne made a rare appearance at ringside and Evander Holyfield a slightly less surprising one. The World Boxing Association champion went up to Harrison afterwards and told him, 'Well done. You're a good guy, a good guy.'

With any luck - or rather, lots of it - Britain's good guy might not finish last this time.