He gave notice of his plan to take the American route by appointing a trainer from the other side of the Atlantic.

‘‘I brought (trainer) Thel (Torrance) on board with America in mind,’’ he said. ‘‘America, for me, is where I am going to dominate in the second phase of my professional career.

‘‘I will definitely be more America-based than Britain-based for that stage. Thel and I sat down and spoke about this and I think he understands that, in an ideal world, if I was an American I’d already be training in his gym.’’

That will have to wait until Harrison has recovered from this latest setback as he bids to emulate fellow Brit Lennox Lewis and become the undisputed king of the heavyweight division.

Harrison’s planned assault on the world heavyweight title suffered its latest setback with the news that he is set to be out of action until the new year.

After targeting winning boxing’s greatest prize within five years he may now be forced to rethink following surgery for a stomach injury.

The 30-year-old was taking part in a charity event in Birmingham over the weekend, when members of the public had the chance to match their sporting prowess against Britain’s successful Olympians.

While he was doing a bench-press exercise, Harrison felt a twinge in his stomach and the medical assessment was worse than he had feared.

A spokesman for the fighter admitted the latest development was ‘‘a tremendous blow’’ to Harrison, who has struggled to win over the British public after turning professional following his exploits in Sydney.

Harrison was due to have his fourth professional fight in London on December 1, but that has now been postponed.

His victory in his last fight against Piotr Jurczyk in Glasgow on October 20 was greeted with a lukewarm response, and the BBC are growing increasingly anxious over their investment.

‘‘Audley was starting to get the momentum going, so this is a horrendous blow to him,’’ added a spokesperson.

‘‘He will be in hospital for a couple of days and will not be fighting for at least two months.

‘‘The surgery has been a success, but we will need to find out over the next couple of days how much training he will miss.

‘‘Audley is obviously pretty disappointed at this stage, but we will move on and hopefully he will be back in action at the start of next year.’’

Harrison’s three-fight professional career has already been interrupted once by injury when he had to pull out of a July meeting in Liverpool with Derek McCafferty.

That second bout was rearranged for September 22 in Newcastle when Harrison got the better of Scotland’s McCafferty via a points decision after six rounds.

Harrison’s most recent appearance came at Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall earlier this month when he beat an over-weight Jurczyk in the second round.

His first pro appearance was even shorter, on May 19 at the Wembley Arena where he beat American Michael Middleton when the referee stopped the fight in the first round.

Harrison has come in for some criticism for the quality of his opponents and his own insistence that he will run his career his own way.