Olympic prospect Joe Goodall to spar with world champ Lucas Browne

NEW world heavyweight champ Lucas Browne could be the key to Brisbane’s Joe Goodall creating more Australian boxing history at the Rio Olympics.

Olympic boxer Joe Goodall of Annerley. Picture: Peter Cronin

NEW world heavyweight champ Lucas Browne could be the key to Brisbane’s Joe Goodall creating more Australian boxing history at the Rio Olympics.

Australia has never won an Olympic gold medal in boxing and until last weekend in Chechnya had never had a world heavyweight professional champ either.

That all changed when Browne, the 36-year-old former bouncer, showed local hero Ruslan Chagaev the door in Round 10, taking the WBA world title.

Now Goodall, 23, believes sparring with Browne could be the key to unprecedented Olympic success in Rio.

The 103kg Brisbane boxer leaves Saturday for a training camp in the Philippines leading into the Olympic Asian Qualifying Event in Qian’an, China on March 23.

Goodall, who won a silver medal at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games and has cleaned up all opposition in the Oceania region, must finish in the top three in China to cement his place for Rio.

He has already sparred top-class professionals such as Alex Leapai and Malik Scott and his trainer Glenn Rushton says working with Lucas Browne would be the perfect Olympic preparation.

Australia's Lucas Browne celebrates his victory over Uzbekistan's Ruslan Chagaev in their WBA world heavyweight boxing title match.

``Joe faces a tough road ahead of the Olympics because the qualifying rules have changed dramatically for Australians,’’ Rushton said.

``In the past if you won the Oceania qualifiers you were on the Olympic team but now Australia has been grouped with powerful boxing nations such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in the Asian group. It makes it so much harder.

``Joe has a lack of quality sparring partners because there are only so many big guys in the country who can stay with him in the gym.’’

This week Goodall has worked with the towering John Szigeti (whose only pro defeats were against Browne and Leapai) as well as a tough pro Mark Flanagan, a former Australian cruiserweight champ.

Rushton says that if Browne is eyeing a first world title defence against either Puerto Rican Fres Oquendo or Kiwi Joseph Parker he could not get better sparring than the 103kg, 190cm Goodall.

``Joe has a similar style to Joseph Parker,’’ Rushton said. ``Joe doesn’t quite have Joseph Parker’s handspeed but he is much better on his feet, a much better mover than Parker,’’ Rushton said.

``Lucas’s win is such a boost for boxing right through Australia and hopefully it can inspire Joe to see that the first ever Olympic boxing gold medal is possible, too.’’

Meanwhile, Jeff Horn, Goodall’s teammate at the Stretton Boxing Club, continues to recover from the throat injury he suffered in sparring and which required surgery.

Horn has been back training for a week and is now planning a rescheduled April 27 bout at the Convention Centre with Randall Bailey, the savage punching American former world champ who is known as ``The Knockout King.’’

Originally published as Olympic prospect Joe Goodall to spar with world champ Lucas Browne