Wolverhampton’s Team GB boxer Ben Whittaker wins silver and has made the whole of the UK proud at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Whittaker, who fights out of Wolverhampton’s Firewalker Fitness & Martial Arts gym under Kirk Walker and Joby Clayton, has been on fire in his Olympic boxing journey.
And now, he has topped it off with a well-deserved sliver, only just missing out on gold in his light-heavyweight final against Cuba’s Arlen Lopez.
As Ben Whittaker wins silver, he has now been hailed a hero in Wolverhampton and in the rest of Great Britain. However, Whittaker’s self-proclaimed competitive spirit showed when he was presented with his medal and he decided not to wear it around his neck. He later said it was because “you don’t win silver, you lose gold”.
In a BBC interview, he said: “I could’ve represented myself better but I’m a true competitor at the end of the day – if I’m playing PlayStation with my friends and I lose I’m upset – if I’m running around the track and I lose I’m upset”.
But since then Whittaker has apologised for declining to wear his medal and said he is proud of his achievement and happy to have represented Team GB in the 2020 Olympic Games.
He added:
“Now it’s all said and done I’ve looked back at what I’ve achieved and done for the country – I’m proud of myself and hopefully GB is too.”
“I’m a human and nobody likes coming second I just showed my raw emotion – it wasn’t the fact I’d lost the gold, it was the embarrassment I’d let people down and let GB down and that’s the things that were going through my head.”
“Now I’ve looked and seen all the good messages I’ve had from everybody back home, it really cheered me up and made me think you know what as long as I’ve helped the GB medal tally and GB boxing I can’t ask for more”.
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