Great Britain will be the dominant force in world amateur boxing in time for the 2012 London Olympics, according to head coach Terry Edwards following another unprecedented week of success.
Khalid Yafai, Billy Joe Saunders and James Degale took the number of British boxers to reach Beijing to seven after successfully negotiating the penultimate qualifying tournament in Pescara.
They join the already-qualified world lightweight champion Frankie Gavin, Joe Murray, Bradley Saunders and Tony Jeffries, with the possibility of up to four more to come at the final qualifier next month in Athens.
Athens is where the domestic amateur boxing revolution began four years ago, when Britain's only qualifier, 17-year-old Amir Khan, confounded expectations by winning a high-profile silver medal.
The extra funding Khan's success unlocked, coupled with the inspiration it gave younger boxers to resist the lure of professionalism, generated a momentum which Edwards says will continue to gather pace.
Edwards said: "If we able to keep this current structure in place and go forward as we are now, I truly believe that by the time the London Olympics come around we will be the new Cuba of amateur boxing.
"Already we are seeing a huge change in the way we are being regarded by the traditional powerhouses of the sport. Until recently they saw us as pushovers. Now they are queuing up to learn our secrets."
Yafai and Saunders provide the best benchmarks of the amateur code's changing fortunes. Both 18 years old, they were touted as long-term prospects for London until their rapid improvement earned them a chance to reach Beijing.
Yafai and Saunders are both members of the Amateur Boxing Association's podium squad, paid full-time and required to spend four days per week training four times a day at the squad base at the Sheffield Institute of Sport.
"Being in Sheffield is one of the hardest things I've ever done," admits Yafai, the flashy Birmingham flyweight who claimed his qualifying place with victory over Moldova's Igor Samoilenco.
"I dread having to lug my big suitcase onto the train every Monday morning. It's a massive sacrifice to be away from my friends and family. But it's exactly these sorts of sacrifices which have got me to Beijing."
Welterweight Saunders, who lives on a travellers' camp near Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire, is an equally precocious talent who had won 49 consecutive bouts until being beaten by Ukrainian Oleksandr Stretskyy on Friday.
But Saunders recovered to win his bronze medal box-off over Slovakia's Pavol Hlavacka 20-10 and win his ticket to China.
"It feels amazing," said Saunders. "It's going to be an honour going to Beijing as part of such a great squad."
Frankie Gavin's world lightweight title triumph in Chicago in November, the first ever such achievement by a British boxer, underlined the fact that Edwards' squad no longer need to settle for second best.
Defections have hit the traditionally dominant Cuban team hard while even the Russians no longer hold any fears. Gavin beat world number one Alexey Tishchenko in Chicago and Saunders overcame Andrei Balanov in Pescara.
ABA chairman and chairman of selectors Keith Walters insists: "We can go to the Beijing Olympics and win three gold medals. Two years ago, if I'd even said we would get three qualified for Beijing you would probably have locked me up."
The success of the programme also provides personal vindication for Edwards, whose decision to drag the boxers out of their comfort zones was criticised, mostly by the long-term amateur coaches shorn of their shining stars.
"There were a lot of people who didn't believe in me and said what I was doing was wrong and couldn't work," said Edwards. "But just look at the results now. I think we've proved that it can."
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