The new boxing ‘superstar’ who played international soccer and juggled training with driving taxis

When Lauren Price was eight years old, she wrote down three goals for herself – to become a kickboxing world champion, play international soccer for Wales and compete at an Olympic Games.

When Lauren Price was eight years old, she wrote down three goals for herself – to become a kickboxing world champion, play international soccer for Wales and compete at an Olympic Games. For most people, growing up involves making choices, giving up on multiple dreams to concentrate all their energies on a single one, in the hope that perhaps just one, if they are lucky, can be realized. But Lauren Price never had to make that decision. At 12, she was a world kickboxing champion, a title she won another three times. Before she turned 18, she had already player soccer for Wales twice at senior level and another 50 times at under-16, under-17 and under-19 levels, where she captained her team. Soccer and kickboxing were ticked off the list. Then, watching female boxers fight in an Olympic ring for the first time at London 2012 inspired yet another goal for Price, and she took up the sport shortly afterwards, leaving soccer to focus on it. That was the sport that took her to the Olympic Games where, remarkably, she won a gold medal at Tokyo 2020 in the female middleweight division.