In-fighting clouds Degale's victory

James Degale pounded his way into the Olympic middleweight final in Beijing before warning amateur boxing chiefs that the nation's top stars could quit over the political in-fighting in the sport.

Degale scored a masterful 10-3 victory over Ireland's Darren Sutherland to advance to the gold medal match and was quick to pay tribute to beleaguered head coach Terry Edwards.

Later, light-heavyweight Tony Jeffries won the bronze after he was beaten by Kenny Egan and super-heavyweight David Price ensured that three British boxers are guaranteed medals for the first times since the 1972 Munich Games.

However, coach Edwards' position is in doubt with the Amateur Boxing Association (ABA), who chose the eve of the Olympic semi-finals to announce welterweight Billy Joe Saunders had been suspended pending a disciplinary hearing.

Asked if he would stay amateur should Edwards be relieved of his duties, Degale said: "I don't think the majority of them would. I would not."

He added: "Terry doesn't get the respect he deserves. We've all got respect for him and he's like a second dad to me. He's fantastic and all the rubbish he gets is not fair.

"Terry sat us down and explained it all to us and it's a load of rubbish to be honest. All we're here for is to win gold medals. Everything is fine and it will be sorted out when we get back."

Degale's classy performance against a rugged opponent who had beaten the Londoner in four of their previous five meetings could not have come at a better time for Edwards.

But despite qualifying eight boxers for the Games, the 65-year-old has received little or no support from boxing chiefs and expressed his disgruntlement at the timing of the ABA's statement yesterday.

Edwards said: "This has been coming for a long time and my skin is getting thicker and thicker. I came here to do a job and they (the ABA) obviously came here to do some sort of other job.

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