Lauren Price interview: From driving drunk passengers in her taxi to boxing on the big stage

A home crowd, a first world title fight, an experienced opponent: Lauren Price faces her biggest test this weekend.

On May 11, in only her seventh professional boxing match, the 29-year-old gets into the ring with Jessica McCaskill – holder of the WBA and IBO world welterweight belts – at Cardiff International Arena.

Yet sporting challenges, not to mention life struggles, are nothing new for the fighter who grew up in Ystrad Mynach, raised by her grandparents after her parents were deemed unable to care for her. She is not daunted and like Joe Calzaghe, the man known as the “Italian Dragon”, before her, Price aims to breathe fire into boxing in Wales, just as Joe Cordina is attempting to do in men’s boxing.

“When I turned professional there was the high expectation of me moving fast, winning world titles, and there’s no better way I suppose than to jump in the mix with a legitimate champion who’s been there and done it, but I’m 100 per cent confident I’ll get the job done,” says Price of the McCaskill fight, which will be live on Sky Sports.

“I think it’s a great fight at the right time and me, my team and Rob [McCracken, also her Great Britain amateur coach] all believe in me. I’m just looking forward to it now, I want to bring big-time boxing back to Wales and this is just the start.”

Price has an exceptional sporting pedigree. She played football for Cardiff and Wales, was a four-time world champion kickboxer, then threw her lot in with boxing a decade ago. As an amateur, the accomplishments mounted up with gold medals at the Commonwealth Games, European Games and World Championships, before topping the Olympic podium three years ago.

That triumph in Tokyo raised her profile immensely and she is quick to pay tribute to the backing she receives in Wales. “We’re a small country but we’re a very proud nation, and when it comes to sport, we definitely support our own,” she says. “The BBC and all the Welsh channels, including S4C – even though I don’t speak Welsh – back me, and I can’t thank everyone enough for putting me out there. I’ve got the nation on my shoulders and flying the flag for Wales. It’s been a dream of mine to box in Wales and to have this fight in Cardiff I’m just excited to put on a show for the fans.”

She has certainly come a long way from driving a taxi to make ends meet in her late teens. “I was only on like £100 a month, boxing for Wales, the funding wasn’t great, my nan and grandad owned a taxi company in the valleys, and they got me a taxi. I worked for them on Friday and Saturday nights, picking up the drunks, dropping them back to Cardiff, and earning a few bob myself. That’s not a job I intend to go back to.”

Price has long hailed her grandmother Linda and her late grandfather Derek for nurturing her sporting abilities. “They were just two amazing people that brought me up from three days old, loved me, told me to believe in my dreams, supported me, spent thousands of pounds on me around the world when I was competing in kickboxing and when I was playing football. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have achieved anything in life... I feel like I was saved in a way... I was given a second chance and that’s all down to my nan and my grandad, so everything in life I thank them for massively.”

Linda will not be in Cardiff on Saturday night – “she never watches me fight, she gets so nervous” – but she will have aunties, uncles and cousins present. The other key woman in Price’s life is her partner Karriss Artingstall, also an Olympic medallist turned professional boxer. “We’re a couple, we support one another. The sport’s hard enough as it is and I just feel lucky to have one another, especially in the pros. You need people around you that you trust. We understand one another, and know what we’ve got to go through mentally and physically.

“I’m also very proud of what she’s achieved, her being in the Army, and her world and Olympic medals, it’s pretty phenomenal. In our new house, hopefully we’ll have a nice media wall so we can fill the shelves up with a few belts.”

Victory over 39-year-old McCaskill, who is in her 11th successive world title fight and has already faced modern greats Katie Taylor, Cecilia Braekhus and Chantelle Cameron, would get that display underway. “Winning a world title will set me up for bigger fights. There’s Sandy Ryan, Tasha Jonas… I want the big fights and at the minute, 147 [lbs] is the division, probably one of the best divisions out there for big fights, and I’m excited about it. This is the start of the journey, boxing in Wales, building my fanbase, and I just want to go on. The dream is to be boxing in the Principality Stadium against the top names, but I just have to take each fight as it comes. But I do want to create greatness.”