Athens-bound Amir Khan is being tipped to eclipse British heroes Audley Harrison and Ricky Hatton after catapulting himself onto the world stage.

The 17-year-old Bury Boxing Club wonderboy became the first English boxer to qualify for the Olympic Games this summer after taking the gold medal in the Strandja Cup qualifying tournament in Bulgaria.

In doing so he becomes the youngest Olympic boxing representative since Welshman Colin Jones reached Montreal in 1976.

Not bad for someone who is still too young to compete in ABA competition in this country!

Amir was first featured in ASIAN IMAGE SPORT back in February 1999.

The meteoric rise to prominence of the level-headed Bolton-based lightweight comes as no surprise to ABA Director of Development Paul King.

"I have watched his progress very carefully and seen him win every major junior title," he said.

"So many kids come through at this rate of knots but to transfer that onto the international stage is a very hard thing to do.

"I've never seen anyone do that as easily as Amir.

"He is already much further on than Audley (Harrison) or Ricky (Hatton) were at his age as they were late developers.

"So he has plenty of time on his side too."

His opponent in the final, Azerbaijan's Rovshan Hysynov, withdrew, giving Khan a walkover for the coveted gold.

Yet, just getting past the semi-final stages of the competition, when he comfortably outpointed Romanian Adrian Alexandrou 46-27, guaranteed the Bolton College student a place on the plane to Greece.

He got the tournament, held in Plovdiv, off to a flyer when he showed the mental strength to overcome Georgian adversary Avtandil Kashia in his opening bout.English ABA team manager Peter Hayes has described his potential as "frightening" and such was his whirlwind progress, he was fast-tracked into the English senior squad after a series of impressive displays.

He swept the board in his age group last year by taking gold at both the European Cadets and European Students Championships and winning the Junior ABAs (Class 5) and the International Junior Olympics.

But it was January this year that people really began to sit up and take notice when he picked up a gold medal in his first taste of senior competition the Adidas Box Gala in Germany.