Lauren Price spent almost 20 years dreaming of what it would be like to step on an Olympic podium, to occupy the highest spot. At eight years old, perhaps the image in her mind was a simple one. As the years went by, maybe the questions began to arise: How weary would her legs feel? How many bruises would her hands hold? How heavily would the gold medal hang? At 27 years old, in a boxing ring in Tokyo, Price would get her answers.
Yet they would also force her to ask new questions, and to dream new dreams. “That was the highlight of my career and probably always will be,” the Welsh welterweight tells The Independent , almost four years on. “I thought it probably would’ve been a bit tougher than it was, but as soon as I got my hand raised, that feeling standing on top of the podium.
.. I can’t really put it into words.
“All the years of hard work, I was backed by my grandparents to believe in my dreams,” she says of the people who raised her in Caerphilly. “To achieve that was special. For me, it was watching the Olympic Games at the age of eight, watching Kelly Holmes win gold.
She was the one who inspired me to go to the Olympics. “When I came back to the Valleys, back to my nan, having been away from her for six weeks, it was an unbelievable feeling. And having Britain and Wales behind me, it kind of put my face on the map.
Just to even go to the Olympics, to get in, is a massive achievement. But to win gold, there’s no better or bigger feeling.” That w.