Liverpool bantamweight Peter McGrail will aim to build on his remarkable start in the senior ranks when he forms part of the England boxing team at the World Championships in Hamburg later this month.
The 21-year-old was crowned European champion in Kharkiv in June in a spectacularly successful tournament where 11 other British boxers also did enough to land world qualifying slots.
Super-heavyweight Frazer Clarke has since been forced to withdraw with a thigh injury, but McGrail will lead a group of England and Scotland boxers high on momentum and targeting a multiple medal haul.
McGrail told Press Association Sport: "I went into the European Championships not really knowing what to expect, but I knew I was as good boxer and most tournaments I'd done enough to reach the final.
"After a few fights I was boxing well and I was looking at the other boxers and I started to think, I'm the best out here, I don't see why I shouldn't go on and win the gold medal and that's what I did.
"The pressure might be different going into the worlds because everyone knows me, but I don't really think like that. I just go in there thinking about what's ahead of me and what I need to do to get that gold."
Eight members of the 10-strong British contingent in Hamburg are members of the full-time GB boxing programme, including Scotland's Lee McGregor, who will join McGrail in the bantamweight division.
Two more Scottish boxers, light-flyweight Aqeel Ahmed and light-heavyweight Sean Lazzerini, who are not part of the GB set-up, also did enough in Kharkiv to earn their respective world berths.
GB performance director Rob McCracken said: "What the squad achieved at the Europeans was remarkable and it shows the talent we have in this team at such an early stage in the Olympic cycle."
Source: PA
