Promoters form Audley queue

In Barcelona eight years ago, Felix Savon won his first Olympic gold medal as a heavyweight fighting for Cuba, dispatching a New Zealander called David Tua along the way.

Yesterday, the supposedly 33-year-old Savon secured his third Olympic gold, surviving a bad cut to beat the Russian Sultanahmed Ibzagimv, and matching the deed of his hero, Teofilo Stevenson. He goes home today, probably to retire and take up coaching.

Savon's reward will be the gratitude of his leader and the adulation of his people, as well as the occasional bottle of rum delivered to the door of his unprepossessing house just outside Havana.

Of the other big men watching Savon at work yesterday, Audley Harrison of Repton and Britain was most awe-struck. They are a division in weight apart but similar in their whippy movement and viperish power-punching. Audley is not one to think small.

One afternoon last week, he was standing alone at the back of the Exhibition Centre in Sydney's Darling Harbour looking determinedly into the middle distance through his fashionable sunglasses. If there was trouble around the corner, he did not seem aware of it.

He'd just had his hair braided and dotted with coloured rubber bands, the sort of extrovert gesture that boxers new to the big time often inflict on themselves and their friends. Except Audley reckoned he was made for the big time.

'Probably as a 10-year-old,' he recalled, 'people were right to say, "Audley's walking around saying he's going to be famous, he's going to be this and that." But I've always believed I was born to do something special.'

Later that day, he did something reasonably special. He came from 8-6 down in the final round of his first bout in the super-heavyweight category to stop Alexey Lezin, the Russian he feared most in the draw.

Two days later, Harrison beat Mahamadkadyz Abdullaev, a block of belligerence from Uzbekistan. 'My toughest fight,' is how Harrison saw the win that guaranteed him a bronze.

And so to probably his best international performance. Dictating the rhythm, spearing his southpaw left through the tightest defence in his division, and finishing like a pro with withering left hooks, Harrison saw off the Italian Paulo Vidoz 32-16.

In the early hours of this morning, Harrison was to discover in the gold medal bout against the one-dimensional but dangerous Kazakh Mukhtarkhan Dildabekov if he'd aimed a little high or if he was the cool dude gunfighter come to town.

Harrison has been guaranteed a six-figure sum to turn professional and, even at 28, he has time to make an impact. Stripped of excess weight over the past year, he has shown in this tournament the style, hand speed and composure that sell tickets.

Ian Irwin, the British coach, said: 'I've never seen a man who is so big who can box so well. At this weight, if you can box, if you can move your feet and you've got a fairly good chin, then you're a hell of a prospect.'

After winning Commonwealth gold against moderate opposition in Kuala Lumpur, Harrison disappointed himself and everyone else at the world championships in Texas last year, encouraging doubts about his commitment.

He says: 'The learning process sometimes means losing. People said to me last year, "You're not going to do anything at the Olympics, you should take the money and turn professional." I knew it was important that I came here, prove it where it matters, not just for myself but for amateur boxing. It was dying, but it's alive and kicking now.'

David Tua left the amateurs after losing to Savon and, this Remembrance Day in Las Vegas, fights for the world heavyweight title against Lennox Lewis. It will earn him a headache and $4.5million.

Lewis won this super-heavyweight title in 1988, and has gone on to amass a fortune estimated at $70million. Perhaps Harrison is dreaming in those proportions. For now, though, the man he most wants to be like is Felix Savon.