All Delicious Orie ever really wanted was to go to university and make his parents proud.

But he couldn’t because he didn’t have a British passport.

That anger drove him to a boxing gym, and this summer – he hopes – it will drive him to winning an Olympic gold medal wearing a Team GB vest.

His story is surely a unique one. Born in his mother’s native Russia, half-Nigerian Delicious – his name inspired by All-4-One R&B star Delious Kennedy – came to Britain as a seven-year-old, and was amazed by the country he found.

“I was in Year Four and I just got a feeling of opportunity,” Orie, 26, tells i.

“There’s always opportunity here. Like ’You’re not very good at English? Here’s extra English lessons. You don’t have access to food? Here’s food, free food, lunch.’”

He says he felt instantly inspired.

“You’ve got the opportunity, take advantage of it, do something great from it,” Orie adds.

“There’s no time to moan and complain. The only reason I was able to do that was because I was able to experience hardship in Russia.

“Coming here from the get-go at seven, it was like ‘I’m going on to uni in the UK’. That’s the number one aim.”

His parents had always instilled a strong focus on academics. When he took up basketball, in part to help make friends and “understand the culture of being an English kid”, and quickly developed an aptitude for it, he was never allowed to duck out of lessons or skip homework to play.

“Basketball didn’t stop me or distract me from school,” Orie says.

“I got good grades, paid attention in school, and was a teacher’s pet.”

It is not the kind of backstory you expect of a heavyweight boxer. More often they talk about being an over-energetic kid or a tearaway teen, diverted to a boxing gym in the hope of channeling aggression in a positive way. Orie’s arrival at a gym was also born of anger, of frustration at a system he did not understand.

First, his dream of playing basketball at university in America was dashed because he only had UK residency and did not have a British passport, meaning he couldn’t travel to the US.

“It was a big barrier and put huge holes into everything that I had ever worked for since I was 10 years old. I was so driven,” Orie adds.

“I had good grades. I played decent level basketball, I had English national trials, at 16 I played for the region.

“I was decent, I was tall, I was more than capable and I was driven. But I was halted because of something that was completely out of my control and something that I didn’t understand.

“I was basically British. All of my friends were from England. I didn’t know anything about Russia. I was fully immersed in that culture. And it was like, ‘Oh, sorry, you can’t do that because you haven’t got a piece of paper to say that you can travel’.

“Some of my mates went out there and got scholarships in Arizona and played, and that absolutely destroyed me. It was very disheartening.”

One evening, Anthony Joshua appeared on the TV. He had just become heavyweight world champion for the first time. Orie knew nothing about boxing, but something about Joshua piqued his interest.

“I didn’t know who he was and I thought ‘He’s a good-looking guy, what’s his story?’,” Orie says.

“I was initially inspired by a basketballer called Luol Deng who came over from Sudan, came to the UK and played basketball. Then he went over to NBA.

“[Joshua] was like the second version, he started boxing at 18 years old and was able to change his life by boxing at the Olympics and then becoming professional.

“So I was like, ‘I’m gonna do this’. And I think it was just a mixture of frustration, a little bit of ignorance and just anger. All these things come together and it was like, ‘I’m going to be the best boxer in Great Britain, I’m going to represent Great Britain at the Olympics, I’m going to turn professional’.”

Orie could not leave his academics behind though and set his sights on a degree in the UK.

But again he was turned away.

He achieved good A-levels – A*, A, B – and wanted to study economics at university. He applied for a student loan to cover the tuition and living expenses, but was told that his lack of citizenship meant he could not.

He took a gap year and worked every hour he could to try and raise the money to cover the cost of a university education.

“It was £13,000 and I was working a minimum wage job: I was working in McDonald’s, working in warehouses, I worked at Sports Direct, I was working two jobs, at Home Bargains, I was doing day-nights. I was a bouncer doing security, even though I’d never been in a club in my life,” Orie says.

“This is what my parents have come here to do. They wanted me to have a better life and I just didn’t want to end up disappointing them. It was like a duty. I had to make sure I could go out there and do it.”

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In the process, he connected with a charity who successfully argued his case to the student finance body, based on the fact he had lived in the UK since the age of seven.

Four years later, Orie emerged from Aston University with a first in economics and management, a British passport – and a burgeoning amateur boxing career.

“I am British and I’ve always thought it all my life. I love the British culture and I am British,” Orie adds.

“But having that piece of paper… People don’t realise how much opportunities you have with just a passport. It just opens the door.”

Orie has since travelled the world representing Great Britain, winning European and Commonwealth gold, and now hopes to follow in the footsteps of Lennox Lewis, Audley Harrison and Joshua by winning Olympic gold and turning professional afterwards.

But the silverware is not the only thing Orie is after this summer.

“I want to tell people how amazing Great Britain is,” Orie says.

“The opportunities here… there’s many countries out there you will not get these opportunities, in order to be where I am today.

“Great Britain is just an absolutely fantastic country and I will push that message out there. That’s my aim: get that gold medal and push that message about Great Britain.

“Because you get a negative sentiment. You see it all the time on social media, especially people my age or younger. And it makes me so angry. You don’t understand.

“Try growing up in Russia. You will have no opportunities. Nothing.”

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