EYE OF THE STORM: The attention of the world is now on Joshua
Photo: ACTION IMAGES/ REUTERS/ ANDREW COULDRIDGE
IT is now over a decade since the first stage of Anthony Joshua’s transformation into one of the biggest sports stars of his generation began in the inauspicious surroundings of a Berkshire prison cell. It was there he also began to appreciate the meaning of a ‘second chance’. The story goes that the 6ft 6in street kid, who was learning his trade as a bricklayer, had been caught up in a fight and later found guilty of affray. He faced 10 years in prison for the offence and as he spent those two weeks on remand staring up at the single fluorescent light in the ceiling, he made a promise to himself. “When I had that second chance at life when I was getting in trouble,” he recalls. “I just dedicated myself. I said I would put myself on a 15-year prison sentence to boxing and have that focus.”
That was 2008, meaning there are still four years left before he is a free man again. It has been suggested that defeat in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia, might just cut the sentence short, offer him the chance at an early release, but that is not part of the plan. “I live boxing, I live it, that’s all I do,” he says. “I could go on longer than that initial 15 years. It’s just a mindset, a prison mindset, like a military mindset, lock-down. Training, focus, sleep. You have to have that mindset. You have to be in that regimen.