1. What inspired you to start your sport?
“I first got into boxing, local to, where I live near Combe Martin, they opened a boxing club there and I was about 13. I used to play football all the time and when the club opened, I just thought I’ll give that a go and yeah, I have never looked back really. I’ve been training ever since then.”
2. Was this the only sport you have focused on?
“No, so going back I used to play football quite a lot and I was pretty good but never as good as I have made it in boxing so yeah, I’m well rounded as an athlete, I like anything sport wise, tennis and rugby I’m always pretty good at. But yeah, boxing I have excelled in the most.”
3. Who is your sports role model?
“That’s a good question, so it would have to be just any famous boxer really, growing up I always used to watch Amir Khan when he came as a 17-year-old through the Olympics and had a successful career. That’s someone I looked up too when I was first starting off myself so any of the top pros from around that sort of era.”
4. What have been the hardest challenges you have overcome?
“Probably like, I’d say my late teenage years getting distracted away from boxing like with going out, drinking, and trying to overcome that sort of stage in my life and get back into the gym and back to training. So yeah, I’d say genuinely that sort of thing, trying to focus fully on boxing and like looking back now how I’ve completely come through that and yeah, I’m not interested in that. I’m just fully focused on boxing.”
5. What’s your biggest sporting achievement?
“My biggest achievement besides maybe turning professional, that was a big achievement on its own, but winning an open class national title, when I was about 16, the feeling of that was completely overwhelming and that probably a highlight of my life.”
6. Do you ever get nervous or scared? If so, how do you overcome it?
“I get really nervous, I’ll admit that the nerves don’t ever affect my performance in the ring, but I’ll be sat in the changing rooms thinking, god there’s probably something better I could be doing then sitting here waiting to go out there and box. But yeah, I always use the nerves to my advantage, so it never really affects my performance, but yeah, I’m not gunna lie, I definitely get nervous. The way to overcome it I suppose, I just think I have been training hard enough and I’ll give it everything, so I have just got to go in there and let all my training come into place when I step into the ring.”
7. What advice would you give any young athlete?
“Just, stay focused and train and if it doesn’t work out to start with just keep going, there will be times when you think, oh other people are overtaking you in the gym or it’s not going as well for you than others, and it’s easy to just say oh I’ve had enough of this and then knock it on the head, but you have just got to keep it going and yeah, eventually, just keep powering through, and you will get there.”
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