Anthony Joshua - King of the Ring. Frank Worrall
Director in Rob McCracken who comes highly recommended. I think BABA is really on the right track and we’re trying to do the same over in the US.
‘When the England team came over they were very focused, very disciplined, and competed tenaciously and they did very well. They won many more than they lost which speaks very highly of their programme. Sharing information and sharing ideas, concepts and dreams are just going to make all the athletes better. I’ve learnt a lot since I’ve been here and I’m going to learn a lot more during the rest of my stay. I think there’s a lot of respect and admiration for one another and just good healthy competition which is what it’s all about right now.’
Rob McCracken did indeed come ‘highly recommended’ and would once again prove that he was not a man who simply rested on his laurels when he encouraged yet more innovation to help Anthony and his fellow boxers the year prior to the Olympics. In 2011, it was revealed that the Sheffield centre was using a hi-tech ‘video capture’ system, the iBoxer, to give the boxers an additional insight into how they could improve performance. The system used a series of cameras to monitor boxers’ movements in the ring, which were fed directly to a series of touchscreen monitors in the gym. The athletes could then go over the footage between bouts in order to analyse and improve performance, define fight strategy and gain a better understanding of their opponents’ tactics.
Professor Steve Haake, director of Sheffield Hallam University’s Centre for Sports Engineering Research (CSER), a UK Sport innovation partner, explained just how it was working in training – and how it would, it was hoped, help the boxers at London 2012. He said, ‘Once the athlete has completed a three-minute sparring round or training session they can come out of the ring and get immediate video feedback on the aspects important to the session. The iBoxer system also stores the judges’ scores and videos for thousands of bouts, which can easily be searched using a laptop or touchscreen PC.’
GB Boxing’s full-time performance analyst, Robert Gibson, had trialled the system with the Olympic squad at Sheffield and could see benefits. He said, ‘Some of the things we’re looking at are to do with points-scoring dynamics. Where are points scored during a bout? What are the current gold medallists doing? What are we doing compared to them? Then we look at punch efficiency. How many punches were thrown per point? And if a point isn’t scored why not?’
And McCracken was similarly effusive, saying, ‘Performance analysis is an important part of our boxers’ preparations. It provides us with insight on their opponents’ strengths and weaknesses and, by providing them with this knowledge, builds confidence. The iBoxer system has supplemented our work in this area and enhanced the quality of our performance analysis.’
So it was little surprise that the system, developed by researchers at CSER in conjunction with the English Institute of Sport (EIS), won the Best New Sports Technology category in the MBNA Northern Sports Awards that year. It was certainly making an impression upon the boxers and trainers as they prepared for the Games. Another example of how McCracken was using technology to get the best out of Anthony and his team-mates – it was a hell of a long way on from the archetypal image of boxers working in rundown spit-’n’-sawdust gyms, spitting blood in buckets and shivering in the cold, as exemplified by the Sylvester Stallone Rocky movies!
As Dr Scott Drawer, Head of Research and Innovation at UK Sport, summed up, ‘Our work sets out to help our athletes and their coaches learn faster than their international opposition, and this is a great example of where increasing knowledge and understanding of the sport can give our athletes a real performance edge.’
Everything was being done to boost performance and help Britain’s elite amateur boxers hit optimum form just when the Olympics came around. There could be no excuses for total failure; not when so much money, time and effort had been thrown at the cause. Optimum body conditioning was key for Anthony. He had never carried any extra pounds but now he would become even leaner and meaner under the auspices of the Sheffield nutritional team. Like the other boxers, his food for each day’s training was pre-prepared and left in the gym fridge in an individual food box. It was carefully planned to give him maximum strength but to keep his weight at the right level too, a balanced mix of carbohydrates and protein as; he told the Guardian in July 2012, ‘I’ve just got to take it home and eat it … I’ll get some fresh meat, fresh fish, fresh salmon, maybe some potatoes. It’s important to stay close to my best fighting weight, even at super-heavyweight. My best is around 106.5kg. At the minute, I’m at 107.1kg. I wouldn’t want to be, like, 109kg. After competition you lose a lot of weight, sweating and so forth. I could weigh in after a fight at 104kg. If I sat back, that’s losing energy. So I have a shake, something to eat, put the energy back in. It’s all about smaller portions, no carbs at night.’
He and the other boxers stayed in flats close to the centre from Monday to Thursday as they prepared for the Games. Anthony would even return to the same accommodation when he turned pro – he admitted it was what he needed to keep his mind on the job. Not spartan, but certainly not luxury, the accommodation was modest and humble – just as he liked it before a fight. Plus, of course, he was near the gym and the facilities of GB Boxing. Back in the build-up to 2012, he and the team would then train at home over the weekend, while ensuring they had regular, and much-needed, rest periods. Good sleep was especially important to Anthony. He admitted he loved taking naps to recharge his batteries and considered them an important part of his overall lifestyle and training structure. He also made sure he saw pals and family as the Games got ever closer; he loved taking time out to smile and laugh with those closest to him. Never one for seeing a glass half empty, Anthony liked to live life and to enjoy it. Sure, he knew he had to put in the long hours and hard work while training but time out was also vital – as the Sheffield centre’s physiologist Laura Needham would point out in 2016. She told the Daily Telegraph, ‘Sleep is so important for recovery. We spend a third of our lives doing it and yet we devote so little attention to it. Take napping during the day, for instance. We like our boxers to nap either for 30 or 90 minutes. If they wake up after an hour, they are likely to be in the deepest part of sleep.’
McCracken knew that the smallest improvement could prove key at the Olympics and so he was also open to the idea of pro boxers helping out. To that end he enlisted the aid of one of the very best, Nottingham’s IBF super-middleweight world champion Carl Froch. Rob was Froch’s trainer as well as being the Sheffield supremo and was delighted that Carl felt able to put the home nation’s ten boxing hopes through their paces. ‘He trains with the squad, he joins in some sessions and he spars with some of them,’ McCracken said. ‘It is great for his speed and tempo, and it is great for them to do three or four rounds with him, he gets them to where they need to get. He has rubbed off on them a lot and I think they have rubbed off on him in some ways as well. I know he is coming down to London and he is really keen to see them do well because a lot of them are his friends as well, and hopefully they can push on and get the medals they thoroughly deserve.’
In June, just a month before the opening ceremony, the final boxing squad for the Olympics was named and Anthony and the team posed for another photo opportunity and a further question-and-answer session with the press. He said he was very confident that the team would do well and that there was a strong possibility that they would make the nation proud. ‘I think we can all go to the Games and achieve something great and bring boxing back up to where it used to be,’ he said. ‘We’ve had enough of bad decisions and fights outside the ring and all that stuff. I’m glad to be in this position but at the same time I’m not trying to be flash or cocky. I’m just trying to help put boxing back in a good place, and I think I’m part of a team that can do it.’
Every member of the group was a Games debutant but Anthony insisted they could beat the three-medal haul from Beijing 2008 – one gold and two bronze – and even equal the five-gong haul from Melbourne in 1956, when Britain came second to only the Soviet Union with two golds, a silver and two bronzes. He added, ‘Five medals is a tough ask but I think we’ve got the talent in this team to match it or even beat it. I don’t think the records are going to stop there. This team can keep getting better and better.’
The final teams looked like this:
Men: Anthony Joshua (super-heavyweight), Anthony