It may have found fame as the home town of the Manic Street Preachers but Lauren Williams aims to kick Blackwood back on the map as the heart of a remarkable Welsh fighting odyssey.
While Williams will target a medal at the World Taekwondo Championships in Manchester next week, her friend and former mentor Lauren Price is emerging as one of the stars in the evolving GB women’s boxing squad.
Williams and Price are both graduates of the Devils Kickboxing Club in Caerphilly, whose coach Rob Taylor led them to world titles in Limassol, Cyprus in 2008 when the pair were aged just nine and 13 respectively.
Williams, a two-time European champion, told Press Association Sport: “Lauren and I grew up together and she was essentially my role model. We trained together a lot and she took care of me at competitions.
“The Devils club was like a family to us and we won world titles together in Cyprus. But it was the Olympics that appealed and that’s why I went on to make the transition to taekwondo.
Price, also a former Welsh international footballer, was first to give taekwondo a shot but found she was better suited to using her fists and has not looked back, claiming a Commonwealth Games boxing gold medal in Gold Coast last year.
Price, from nearby Bargoed, recalled: “Lauren started at the club when she was four and I was eight. She was ‘Little Lauren’ and I was ‘Big Lauren’ – and to some we still are. We went abroad together and won world titles.
Taylor still trains kick-boxers in the region and even boasts of having a third ‘Lauren’ – Lauren Woolf, who will imminently challenge for the European title – on his remarkable production line.
For Taylor, the success of Williams and Price, and the prospect of them emerging as medal winners in Tokyo next year, is testament to the commitment they showed since they first started attending his club.
? It’s a big day for @LaurenW_TKD as the 20-year-old taekwondo star has been named in the @GBTaekwondo squad for the 2019 World Championships pic.twitter.com/6OftkeJl3y
— BBC Sport Wales (@BBCSportWales) April 12, 2019
“Lauren Price was a grafter,” recalled Taylor. “Her work ethic is incredible and it is testament to where she is today. She is just ferocious – you can’t teach toughness and she’s got it in bucket-loads.
“Lauren Williams had a similar kind of work ethic. She’d be there four nights a week from a young age and once she realised her potential she went on from there. It’s fantastic to see what they’ve both achieved.”
The World Taekwondo Championships, which are being held in Britain for the first time, start at Manchester Arena on Wednesday. Williams begins her campaign in the women’s -69kg category next Saturday.
