Nathan Dale will have to overcome the twists and turns of boxing if he is to lift a world junior title in Norwich at the weekend.

The city boxer has seen two scheduled opponents fall by the wayside – one because of injury and one because of a technical reasons.

With less than a week to go before the biggest fight of his life, there were serious doubts about whether the fight would go ahead – but finally, trainer Graham Everett and promoter Mervyn Turner have found an opponent in Bogdan Galaev, from Belgium.

The two will square off at St Andrew's Hall on Friday for the IBF world youth welterweight crown.

'I have never seen a run of circumstances like this,' said promoter Turner. 'I have been involved in a lot of fights and fight negotiations, but this one really did go down to the wire.

'But all the hard work has paid off and we can now once again look forward to world championship boxing next Friday.'

On the face of it, it would appear to be problem solved, but the 23-year-old Dale now has to adjust his own preparations.

'We have perhaps not got the opponent we would have wanted ideally as Graham has been training Nathan for a particular fight, but he and Nathan will, I am sure, cope with the change in styles and tactics,' added Turner.

'The international body came up with this guy from Belgium and whilst he has not had as many fights as Nathan he has a tremendous amateur record and is highly tipped for bigger things in world boxing.'

Dale takes a record of 16 wins in 16 outings into the fight, whilst 21-year-old Galaev has seven wins, one defeat and one draw on his record. The defeat was a very close majority decision last June against Tunisian Islam Teffani who himself was a contender for the Benelux title.

'He will be bigger than Nathan on the night, being the naturally bigger man,' said Everett. 'He isn't the opponent we would have wanted in an ideal world, but you can't always have what you want on a world level.

'In saying that we are extremely confident that Nathan will overcome his opponent on the night.

'He has trained so hard for this fight and whilst all this was going on around him he never lost focus so I couldn't be happier with his condition right now.'