NEWPORT-BORN Team GB medal hope Lauren Price told the Duke of Cambridge that boxing gold at Tokyo 2020 would top everything in her extraordinary career.

Price, 27, made more than 50 appearances for Wales Women’s national football team and won senior world and European kickboxing titles before focusing on her Olympic dream.

In an interview for BBC Sport, Price, who will become Wales’ first female boxer to compete at the Olympics, spoke with William about her remarkable life and expectations for Tokyo.

“The Olympics mean the world to me and if I was to go and win a gold medal it would top everything in my career,” said Price, who was raised in Ystrad Mynach by her grandparents, Derek and Linda.

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“I remember being sat in the living room with my Nan and Grandad watching the Olympics and seeing Kelly Holmes win gold, and at the time I didn’t know what sport I wanted to do, I just wanted to go to the Olympic Games.”

Four-time world champion and six-time European champion at kickboxing, Price won the inaugural Welsh Premier Women’s Football League title with Cardiff in 2013 and won 52 senior caps for Wales before quitting football to focus on boxing in 2014.

The former taxi driver, whose grandfather died last year, revealed her sporting dreams in a story she wrote at school.

Nan Linda told the BBC: “Lauren said she wanted to be a world champion kick boxer, play football for Wales and go to the Olympics and the teacher laughed. I said, ‘you should never try and shatter their dreams.’ “It’s just sad that her grandfather’s not here to see it because he would have been the proudest man in the valley.”

The Duke of Cambridge lost his grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, in April.

GB Boxing performance director Rob McCracken added: “She’s a phenomenal athlete and a real role model for the females, certainly at GB Boxing and in the team.

“She’s in a great position now to go on and fulfil her potential, which is winning an Olympic medal.”