Rio Olympics 2016: Team GB boxing hope Lawrence Okolie was working at McDonalds during London 2012

Hit parade: heavyweight Lawrence Okolie
(Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

At London 2012, Lawrence Okolie was flipping burgers at McDonald’s, tomorrow he will be pulling punches as he gets his bid for Olympic gold under way.

The Londoner took up boxing just six years ago after a doctor diagnosed him as being clinically obese and almost walked away from the Repton Boxing Club in Bethnal Green when told there was a better fighter in his division, heavyweight.

But two years on from that moment — one he described as “a real down” — he takes on Poland’s Igor Pawel Jakubowski in his opening bout at 5pm UK time.

Casting his mind back to the last Olympics, he recalls: “I was 19 and just trying to make some money to get by before I went to university. If somebody had said that four years later I’d have qualified for the Olympics, I’d have ripped their hand off.”

Okolie has switched cooking and eating burgers — losing nearly 30 kilos in the process — to be part of a boxing team that are tipped to have their most successful Games ever.

Being axed at Repton proved the turning point. He adds: “That was a real down for me. I wasn’t sure where to go, what to do. I didn’t realise there were other places I could go to.”

Okolie, whose raw talent was spotted by GB selectors at his subsequent club, says: “It’s weird, really. I don’t even know what to say when trying to describe my story as when I joined the team I’d had just 15 fights. But to now have qualified for the Olympics is surreal.”

His qualification was sealed by beating three fighters ranked above him and in the top 10 in the world.

Okolie, who has rubbed shoulders with boxing aficionado Andy Murray in the Olympic village, is aiming to emulate the Scot’s feat of winning gold four years ago.

“Obviously everyone has their stories but I feel just the way that everything’s played out, it seems like something special is meant to happen,” he says.