Amir Khan: Boxing's one and only loses that extra edge in his corner

Britain's youngest Olympic warrior must fight without his personal coach. Alan Hubbard meets a competitor who is bold but not brash

There are almost a hundred cups and medals stacked on the shelves which house Amir Khan's boxing trophies at the family home in Bolton, testimony to the astonishing prowess and meteoric progress of the 17-year-old who, in sport's year of the teenager, is emerging as boxing's equivalent of Wayne Rooney and Maria Sharapova. There are hopes that he will find room for at least one more. An Olympic gold medal which, with a little luck and some decent ringside judgement, he believes he can bring home from Athens next month.

It is a belief forged on proven class and a quiet confidence rather than cockiness. A prolific schoolboy and junior international - he recently became only the second Briton ever to win a world junior title - the Lancashire lightweight was fast-tracked into the England senior squad and the Olympic qualifiers when Pakistan, where his family have their roots, began making overtures.

So, while he is still too young to box in their national domestic finals - his 18th birthday falls in December - the English ABA hastily revised their regulations to enable him to become the youngest boxer ever to go to the Olympics.

Every time he has won a major international tournament he has been voted the best boxer in it, including the Olympic qualifying event in Bulgaria, from where he emerged as Britain's only ring representative in the Games. But, as ever with the vested version of the noble art, his appearance is not without controversy.

They say the ring is the loneliest place in the world, and it will be for Amir in Athens. Not only is he Britain's sole contender but he will be without his coach, Mick Jellie, who cannot obtain accreditation because only the national coach has been nominated to accompany the one-man team. Jellie claims he has been "frozen out" after handling Amir for more than five years. "He's my lad. He's been all my hard work and now someone else has come along and is going to the ball." That someone is Terry Edwards, the national coach, because that is the way the ABA work. Club coaches have not been part of their Olympic policy since 1964.

So you might say that while Amir has caught the Athens bus, he will miss the coach. As is his nature, he has not kicked up a fuss about it, but he does say: "It's a real shame, because with Mick in my corner it would have given me that extra edge, He knows me inside out and I rely heavily on his advice. But Terry has been with me for some of my senior bouts and we are comfortable with each other."

Jellie will pay his own way to Athens to be on tap to lend support to Amir, of whom he says: "I have never seen any young boxer quite as versatile. He can box and he can fight - the complete package. He has everything it takes to be a champion." Some are already calling him the new Naz, but Amir does not welcome the comparison. In fact, mention of Naseem Hamed is likely to bring a dismissive shrug. He admits he is not much of a Naz fan: "I quite like the way he boxed, but he's a bit too brash for me, too full of himself. I don't go for that sort of thing."

So, no latter-day Naz, but definitely an Ali man. It was watching videos of the great Muhammad that cemented Amir's love affair with boxing soon after his father, Shajaad, took the hyperactive eight-year-old for his first lesson in the gymnasium of the Halliwell Boxing Club in Bolton. With other kids in the club he sat open-mouthed as they watched Ali's Rumble in the Jungle with George Foreman 12 years before Amir was born. "I was amazed the way Ali boxed. It was just incredible. We all wanted to be like him." He says his technique is based on The Greatest. "I picked up little things, not trademark things like his shuffle, but the flicking jab, feints and the fast feet. I just thought he was fantastic. I still do."

Ali, as Cassius Clay, became an Olympic champion when he was 18. Whether Kid Khan is to become King Khan with his own Olympic coronation in Athens is likely to depend on the Cuban Mario Kindelan, almost twice Khan's age at 32 and recognised as the most powerful talent in world amateur boxing. He is the title-holder, and in a pre-Olympic tournament in Athens last month he inflicted what was Amir's first defeat in four years.

They met in the final, and the British camp will hope they are kept apart in the draw. Kindelan won by a clear, though not overwhelming, points margin, and the hope is that that Amir can build up his confidence in the earlier rounds for a possible return engagement on 20 August.

That setback did not seem to faze him. Half an hour later he was walking around the arena methodically working out fresh tactics in his mind should they meet again. This time, he reckons, it will be different. "That was a bit of a learning exercise for me. I stored quite a lot of things about him in my head, and the mistakes I made I won't be repeating." Amir says Sydney was the first Games he had really watched on TV, and it was seeing Audley Harrison win his super-heavyweight gold that fired him towards his own Olympic ambitions.

He admits disappointment that Harrison has not been in touch to offer advice in the run-up to Athens and give him the benefit of his own Olympic experience. "I heard that he was saying he would be happy to help out. I've tried to get in contact with him but I've had no response."

Amir, a bright and articulate student of sports development at Bolton Community College, comes from a middle-class family in Bolton. His father, originally from Islamabad, is a motor engineer who runs his own scrap-metal and mini-cab business. He has watched nearly all Amir's fights.

As a sporting family they would certainly pass the Tebbit Test. Amir's 13-year-old brother Haroon is already looking to make it something of a Khan boxing dynasty, contributing his own trophies to the cabinet. The latest is a gold medal which he won for England in the Four Nations' event in Liverpool last month. Amir's cricketing cousin Sajid Mahmood plays for Lancashireand recently made his debut for the England one-day international side.

Amir is aware of the significance of his Pakistani background and the racially tense environment that he grew up in. "Being selected for Britain is a positive thing for race relations in this country. I did have a chance to box for Pakistan, and the route to Athens would have been easier, but not a lot of Asians get selected for this country at anything and I'm proud to wear the British vest. I've lived here all my life and I feel English through and through.

"My ultimate aim is to win a world professional championship. By then I might be a welterweight, because I'm still growing. I'd like to go on to the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne and perhaps the next Olympics first, but it depends on a lot of things, especially whether England can take care of me with the Lottery money, which I couldn't do without if I am to stay ama-teur." He currently gets £1,200 a month.

And there's the worry. Sport England are conducting an inquiry into the workings of the ABA, concerned, among other things, that only one boxer has qualified for the Games (there were only two in Sydney). Some Exchequer funding was temporarily withheld, but the ABA hope that a new blueprint for their future, now being drawn up, will get things sorted. Sport England are also concerned about internecine squabbling between the ABA and schoolboy boxing, of which Amir is the most outstanding product ever.

In their defence, the ABA point out that five English boxers did reach the final European qualifying round in what is the toughest group since the Soviet Union splintered into 15 nations. In Bulgaria the judges even likened Amir to the young Ali ("That really gave me a buzz") but there is no element of flashiness about him, in the ring or out. He has a maturity well beyond his years, thinking his way through bouts calmly and with fluent mobility.

It is possible that this is one Olympics too soon for boxing's boy wonder, though the former world middleweight champion Alan Minter is among those who do not think so. "If you are good enough, you are old enough. Being young he has no fear. He's strong, he's determined and he has class and ambition. That's a terrific combination for a kid. Yes, he could do it."

With the BBC dropping out, Sky believed to be cutting back on Saturday-night fights and Harrison playing silly buggers, the game needs Amir. More than the prospect of a gold medal rests on his slim though muscular shoulders, but they are more than capable of carrying the sport's weight of expectation not only in Athens, but beyond.