It doesn’t take long for a boxing dream to die. Pryce Taylor’s was over in nine seconds, the amount of time it took for a bow-tied judge in Lake Charles, La., to declare his opponent the winner in an Olympic qualifier in December.
Minutes later he sat in a corner near the locker room, his 6-foot-4 frame deflated. Mr. Taylor was a shell, and his yearslong dream was over: there would be no trip to Tokyo, no parade with family in the stands, no tattoo of the Olympic rings.
That Mr. Taylor would even land in this ring was already a long shot. He had started boxing only four years ago, and the sport had given purpose to his otherwise rudderless adulthood. He was 23, so this shot at the 2020 games — his first — was most likely his last. By the next Olympics, he would be 27, the amateur boxing equivalent of an old-timer.