two stone as he let his diet go to the wall.Eventually tipping the scales at 81kg -- some 12kg over the welterweight limit -- Kelly realised almost too late that he was sabota

Forget rival boxers, Britains Josh Kelly has been fighting the flab to realise his dream of claiming an Olympic medal in Rio.The welterweight nearly blew his chances of making the Team GB squad when he fell out of love with the sport and packed on an extra two stone as he let his diet go to the wall.Eventually tipping the scales at 81kg -- some 12kg over the welterweight limit -- Kelly realised almost too late that he was sabotaging his own chances of standing on the podium in Rio.I had a couple of injuries and fell out of love with the sport, Kelly told ESPN. I didnt want to do it. People would mention the Olympics to me and I just didnt want to know.Ive got the body type thatll put loads of weight on, but I just started eating like a normal kid. I wasnt eating daft, I was just eating normal meals, chilling out and not training.Over Christmas [last year] I had too much of a layoff. I was having such a good year in 2015, but at Christmas time I just thought Id sit back a little bit and relax. The other lads were in the gym for hours, but I was letting them slap me here and there.There is little doubt about Kellys talent. The 22-year-old notched a bronze at last years European Games in Baku, falling in the semifinals to home fighter Parviz Baghirov via a questionable decision.However, after losing his edge over the winter, Kelly was in no shape to enter the European Olympic qualifying event in Turkey in April. And it was at that moment the fighter realised he was putting his Rio dream in jeopardy.Being the weight I was, I was never going to get to [Turkey], he explained. It came too quick. If I had to drop the weight I wouldnt have been healthy for it. When they selected another lad for that competition, the penny dropped.The coaches said if I didnt have the natural talent, theyd be wasting their time on me. But they said they could see a potential medallist, so I was worth sticking with. I kept thinking, when I make this weight Im qualifying.But the motivation for Kelly to return to the sport did not just come from seeing other boxers given the nod ahead of him. As is often the way with young men, Kelly had to be told by a parent.There was a time I was sat there with my dad and he said, you dont want any regrets when youre older. Now you might think it [quitting] is a good choice, but when youre older youll think about what could have been.After missing the European qualifiers in April, Kelly faced a race against time to turn his life around and reach Rio. Newly motivated, his chance came at the final Olympic qualifier in June, back in Baku.The return to the Azerbaijani capital saved Kellys amateur career. After a ferocious training schedule and a new diet -- based on boring fruit, veg and water -- he qualified for Rio with victory over Trinidad and Tobagos Aaron Prince in the quarterfinals.Proudly taking his place among the biggest British boxing team at an Olympics for 32 years, Kelly faces a tough opener against Egypts Walid Sedik Mohamed on Monday night. But after battling so hard just to book his seat on the plane, theres no way Kelly has flown to Rio just to make up the numbers.If youre going there, youre going to get gold, he said. Youre not going there to mess about. Ive got high expectations of myself. Obviously I need to go there and enjoy the experience. Hopefully thatll let me perform to the best of my abilities.Improbably, when hes not in the ring, Kelly is often to be found in front of the camera. The Sunderland native has found work as a part-time model, but he is prepared to lay his good looks on the line for a shot at gold in Rio.I guess Im not too bad on the eye, Kelly joked. My stylist says I should avoid getting hit, but Im not one of those kids who stands there and slugs it out. Im in and out from different angles. Its done me good over the years.The Olympics changes your life. If I can make it at the Olympics, it would finish my job as an amateur. The next stage is a medal, its just the pinnacle of the sport. Wholesale New Balance Shoes NZ .com) - Following a late-game loss to the reigning NBA champs, the Toronto Raptors will look to sustain their recent high-level play as they travel to Indiana to take on the Pacers. New Balance Shoes NZ Online . The CFLs leading rusher kept adding to his gaudy numbers this season and scored the winning touchdown with just over two minutes to play. The New Westminster, B.C., native plowed three yards into the end zone for the last score of a heated, see-saw battle between the two teams with the best records in the CFL. http://www.clearancenewbalancenz.com/ . It was the kind of score that might make everyone else wonder which course he was playing. Except that Graeme McDowell saw the whole thing. Crouched behind the 10th green at Sheshan International, McDowell looked over at the powerful American and said, "Ive probably seen 18 of the best drives Ive seen all year in the last two days. Cheap Shoes NZ .J. Jefferson has been charged with assaulting his girlfriend. New Balance Shoes NZ For Sale . This should be celebrated because it will not always be this way. With the amount of money given to players by their clubs these days, it is a wonder that so many of those teams allow the sport to continue to take away many of their assets so they can play for a different team in the middle of their season. TORRANCE, Calif. -- Karch Kiraly knows a little something about bringing home Olympic gold. After all, hes done it three times, in the 1984, 1988 and 1996 Games.He was also the first player, male or female, to win Olympic gold in both indoor and outdoor volleyball. In short, Kiraly, 55, is one of the most decorated players in the sports history.Now, as head coach of the U.S. womens indoor volleyball team, he hopes to take Team USA to its first Olympic gold medal when the Rio Games start next week. In both 2008 and 2012, the team won silver -- and in 2012, Kiraly was an assistant coach for the squad.We caught up with him to find out how he switched his mindset from athlete to coach -- and get his best piece of advice for coaching Olympians.espnW: Youve been to the Olympic Games as an athlete. Whats it been like stepping into a coaching role for Team USA? Certainly I got some nice practice at it as assistant coach in London. I think theres a tendency in sports that people who have had a lot of success as players dont necessarily make the best coaches, the most effective teachers, the most effective leaders. So I know Im fighting against that and trying to break that norm.But the other thing I have going for me is that unlike many other coaches out there, Ive been on the Olympic court and know what thats like and all of the challenges that come along with that.I plan to leverage that and try to help our team perform at the level wed like to in Rio, which should be the most amazing Olympic Games for volleyball when you combine how popular both sides of the sport are in that country.Is there an experience you remember from being at the Olympics that you draw on when you are coaching? I dont know that there is a single experience, but certainly its a bigger tournament by virtue of the fact that lots of people get to see volleyball that otherwise dont get to see it the other three years, 11 months and two? weeks [between the Games].And also because teams have been striving to try to do something special. You only get one chance every four years, and if it doesnt go your way, youve got to work hard another four years. Its not like losing a Super Bowl and coming back the next year. In a sense, there are some unique challenges there, and its not just in volleyball: Its every sport att the Olympics.ddddddddddddpeaking to that a little bit, the stakes are so different when youre doing it every four years. How does it change how you approach things as an athlete and as a coach? We essentially work in four-year cycles because of the Olympics. People call them quads or quadrennia. There are big events each year that we focus on. Last year, it was the World Cup. Two years ago, it was the world championships. Those are major tournaments and in some ways tougher to win than the Olympics themselves and more challenging.But the Olympics is the tournament that gets a lot more attention in and outside our country. Its just a different beast and so we have to be able to approach it with a level of psychological flexibility. Theres gonna be a lot of adversity.Nobody wins a major tournament like that without overcoming gnarly adversity, and the team that does, wins. Thats a big a part of our preparation, is how to respond to the adversity that will inevitably happen at a tournament like the Olympics. It could be injuries, could be the bus tire gets a flat and we arrive three minutes before the start of a game. Could be things that we cant even imagine right now that are our response to is really whats important.What advice do you have for other coaches, at any level?I havent been coaching that long. Im pretty young, in coaching years. Ive really only been coaching since about 2007. I might be a little presumptuous to give anybody knowledge, but one thing that has helped me a lot is to approach it like, Every day, there are things to learn.You can become a lot better, as a player or as a coach, if you are a really dedicated learner, if you are what [author Carol Dweck] says in her book Mindset, in a growth mindset and embrace -- as hard as it sometimes is -- mistakes. If were not making any mistakes, were not learning fast enough. Were actually holding ourselves back if were not operating at the edge of our abilities.So you have to be willing to be OK with looking foolish sometimes, with making stupid mistakes, sometimes as a coach, as a head coach even. I think if I can be OK with that, I can be a better model for the rest of our program. ' ' '