Who is Delicious Orie? The British super-heavyweight boxer aiming for Olympic gold in Paris

Since the year 2000, Team GB have produced a men’s super-heavyweight medallist at all bar one Olympic Games.

This summer in Paris, British hopes rest with Delicious Orie.

While fighters take many routes which eventually lead to a boxing gym, the 27-year-old’s path is particularly unusual.

Born in Moscow to a Nigerian father and Russian mother, the future Olympian would feel a culture shock when moving to London aged seven.

“I remember not being able to speak a word of English,” Orie recalled in an interview with Rob Tebbutt for One on One. “It was quite difficult at the start being someone from Russia.”

Orie and his parents eventually settled in Wolverhampton, where the youngster applied his driven nature to basketball.

Two-time NBA All-Star Luoll Deng was an inspiration to Orie. The basketball player had arrived in London as a refugee, fleeing the war in Sudan. He went on to attend college in the United States before forging a successful career in the NBA.

This was the pathway Orie intended to replicate, but was prevented from doing so due to a technicality. While the young man was a UK resident, he did not have citizenship or a British passport. Bureaucracy had curtailed his dream.

However, it did not take long for Orie to discover a new sporting idol.

“AJ [Anthony Joshua] came at the perfect time,” he said. “In 2016, when he won his first world title, that was it for me.

“I was thinking ‘This guy looks real cool,’ I want to do this.”

Like Orie, Joshua is of Nigerian descent and started boxing later than most. Orie had a new sportsman to emulate.

Standing at 6ft 6ins tall and naturally athletic, Orie was confident he would adapt to the sweet science quickly. Shortly after AJ defeated Charles Martin for the IBF title, the Russian-born Brit made his way to a local gym only to receive another culture shock on his arrival.

The blood-spattered canvas and scent of stale sweat did not discourage his ambition, but as he discovered, the transition from the court to the ring would not be seamless.

“As soon as I walked into the boxing gym, I was like alright, this is going to be my life now,” he reminisced. “When I got punched in the face for the first time, it wasn’t nice. I have quite a big nose, it’s quite hard to miss.

“I found out I couldn’t even throw a jab; there was no technique, nothing! I couldn’t skip, I had no skill, whatsoever. It was a very humbling experience to be punched repeatedly for three minutes, looking at the clock and just begging [for it to be over,]” he said with a laugh.

While many fighters take up boxing due to the lack of options available to them, this was not the case for Orie. The West Midlands man could have earned a good living in a variety of fields, as he demonstrated by earning a first-class degree in economics, maths and management.

However, Orie had his sights set on greatness.

Despite his inauspicious start to life as a boxer, Orie progressed quickly, winning a national title less than three years on from his first time stepping through the ropes.

The meteoric rise continued as Orie earned a spot on Team GB, captured bronze at the 2022 European championships before claiming gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and 2023 European Games, at which he earned qualification to the Olympics.

The parallels with Anthony Joshua are easily made, with some observers labelling Orie “the next AJ.” In fact, the London 2012 gold medallist seems to be of that opinion himself, having posted a picture of him and Orie together, captioned: “The present and the future.”

Such is Orie’s reverence for the Watford fighter, he has downplayed such comparisons. This is not out of faux modesty, but a deep-rooted respect for the achievements of the former unified heavyweight world champion.

“AJ is my role model,” he said. “He’s the reason I took up boxing. This guy started boxing at 18, same as me, and he got a gold medal at the Olympic Games, which I believe – this might be controversial – is harder [to achieve] than some world titles. He did that in four years from starting from nothing at 18. That’s amazing.”

Yet, Orie remains ambitious and hopes to surpass the accomplishments of his mentor as he has set himself a lofty goal. Within 10 years, Orie hopes to establish himself as the best big man on the planet.

“I see myself being undisputed heavyweight,” he proclaimed. “I also see myself inspiring hopefully inspiring as many children as possible."

First, there is the matter of the Olympics. Orie is seeded in the super-heavyweight draw and could be on a collision course with Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Bakhodir Jalolov. The Uzbek has also fought 14 times as a professional, with all 14 wins coming inside the scheduled distance.

Rather than being daunted by the prospect of taking on such an imposing foe, Orie relishes the opportunity and hopes to dethrone Jalolov en route to becoming ‘Golden’ Delicious.

“This is why I love amateur boxing,” he said on the prospect of facing the reigning champion. “In amateur boxing, there is nowhere to run or hide, you have to fight the best. In the pros, you can go: ‘I don’t like the look of him, I’m going to swerve that. In the amateurs, you get tested. I love that. I don’t want to mess around; I want to be the best.

“I can’t wait. This is why I’m staying in the amateurs, to box everybody, to box the best and get that gold medal.”

John MacDonald

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