19/09/2024

THURSDAY | SEP 19, 2024

28

SPORTS

I’m willing to die against Dubois: AJ Joshua will challenge fellow Briton in bid to become three-time world heavyweight champion

Ű BY ALEX PATTLE

who have come before me have said – it takes more than being a physical specimen to be a fighter. “It’s a good attribute, but when you come across someone who’s willing to take that from you, and you’re giving them your best shot and they’re taking it, that’s when you figure out what it takes to be a champion. “I’ve been there, I’ve been to the well. Dubois is fighting someone that’s willing to die in there, that wants to give everything to be victorious.” Still, the younger fighter owes Joshua zero respect, according to the former two-time champion. “Na, the only thing he owes me is a punch, and that’s it!” Joshua laughed. “I don’t want anything else from him. I don’t want respect; I have to earn respect, if I want it, and that’s what I’m gonna do on Saturday night. Everything I’ve done in the past, we have to draw a line under it,

because I can’t take that with me on Saturday night.” Dubois won the interim IBF title by stopping Filip Hrgovic in June, six months after beating Jarrell Miller in the final seconds of their fight. Those results marked a positive response from Dubois after his TKO loss to Usyk last August. The Ukrainian climbed off the canvas after a controversial low blow from Dubois – a shot that should have been declared legal, according to the Briton – to stop “Dynamite” in round nine. Usyk then outpointed Tyson Fury in May to become undisputed champion. Meanwhile, Joshua suffered back-to-back points defeats by Usyk in 2021 and 2022, but he has since won four fights in a row. AJ beat Jermaine Franklin on points in April 2023, before stopping Robert Helenius, Otto Wallin and Francis Ngannou in his next three fights. Those wins have brought Joshua back into the

title picture, as he returns to Wembley Stadium – where he stopped Wladimir Klitschko in 2017 and Alexander Povetkin in 2018. But Joshua will try to fight his opponent, not the occasion, on Saturday. Discussing the prospect of becoming a three-time champion, Joshua said: “You know what’s crazy? I always say: Sunday morning, you wake up, and your bills still come out of your account. It’s mad... You’ve got to do your washing. “When you’re in training camp, someone was taking a video because I was just doing my ironing after the Ngannou fight. The only difference is that it hurts, losing. “When you win, you’re on a high. To get back balanced (after losing), it takes a bit of time. After the Ngannou fight, everything was good, we went to the Formula One – you know, you’re riding that wave. Hopefully we do that on Saturday.” – The Independent SHORTS Spieth sets sight on 2025 season JORDAN SPIETH said he is progressing well following wrist surgery and expects to be ready for the start of the 2025 PGA Tour season. “I think that by 2025, by Jan 1, it’s my goal to be tournament-ready,” Spieth told Golfweek in a Q&A published on Monday. “And for me, that would be not just going out and seeing how it feels, you know, but expecting to play at my ceiling.” Sporting a cast on his left wrist in his first public appearance since his surgery, Spieth appeared at a fundraiser at Brookhaven Country Club just outside Dallas. Spieth, 31, initially injured his wrist in 2023. He last competed in the FedEx St. Jude Classic at TPC Southwind in Memphis in mid-August. “I would say the No. 1 reason why I ended up getting it done was because it affects my way of life at home,” he said. “Like when it would dislocate and I couldn’t get it back in, it would happen when I’m getting my daughter out of the bath, I’m putting a sweatshirt on or it just so random that it was like, I didn’t want it to continue, and it happened more and more. “And it wasn’t going to heal itself based on a number of different docs and scans and whatever. So it’s just inevitable.” Perez’s dad rushed to hospital SERGIO PEREZ’S father was stable in hospital in Mexico City after he collapsed at home following the Red Bull Formula One driver’s heavy crash in Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, local media reported yesterday. A statement from the Scuderia Perez race organisation said Antonio Perez Garibay, 65, would remain under close medical supervision for several days. “Everything happened after the accident,” mediotiempo.com quoted him saying from the hospital.“It may be that the shock of the accident triggered it. They are already checking my heart to see why I fainted.” Raducanu passes Stearns test FORMER US Open champion Emma Raducanu said she was proud of her performance as she picked up her first win in 48 days after beating American Peyton Stearns 7-6(4), 7-6(5) in the first round of the Korea Open in Seoul yesterday. The 21-year-old, who faced a first-round exit from the US Open last month, lost four games in a row after taking a 4-1 lead in the first set as Stearns fought back, but was able to prevail in the tiebreak. Stearns won three games in a row to go from 5-3 down to serve for the second set, but Raducanu broke to force another tiebreak where she won again.

A NTHONY JOSHUA has insisted that he is “willing to die” against Daniel Dubois on Saturday (Sun 4am Malaysian time) , as the Britons clash at Wembley Stadium. Joshua, 34, will challenge Dubois for the IBF heavyweight title, after Dubois, 27, was elevated from interim champion when Oleksandr Usyk vacated the official belt. For Joshua, the main-event contest represents a chance to become a three-time world champion, and “AJ” is adamant that he will leave everything in the ring to achieve that goal. “This is the thing with fighting: it takes more than being strong to be a champion and a good fighter,” Joshua told reporters yesterday. “It’s good, but I truly believe from what I’ve read and studied – and from what great people

Playing for your country beats franchise cricket, says Zampa

look like in the next few years, particularly with this format, but I feel like ODI cricket’s still a really good format. “I still enjoy playing it and think a lot of young guys coming through still see it as a good opportunity to play for your country.” With 169 wickets, Zampa is the second highest wicket-taker among Australian spin bowlers in ODIs, behind only the great Shane Warne who took 291 from 193 matches. He has become arguably Australia’s most important player in white-ball cricket, having been the team’s leading wicket-taker at last year’s 50-over World Cup in India and during their run to the T20 World Cup title in 2021. He warmed up for the ODI series against England by helping the Oval Invincibles win The Hundred, a franchise league played in England and Wales, for the second year in a row. “It was great, I loved playing it, and winning at the end is a bonus,” he said. “But it hits different when you play for your country, when you win World Cups. Still got that drive to win many more.” – Reuters

RISING numbers of cricketers are spurning the international game to focus on lucrative franchise deals across the globe but Adam Zampa’s heart remains set on winning more matches for Australia. The spinner will play his 100th ODI against England at Trent Bridge today in a series criticised by pundits for lacking context and having nothing really at stake. Declining interest in the 50 over game means Zampa will more than likely finish his career well short of Ricky Ponting’s Australian record total of 374 ODIs. But it won’t be for a lack of trying for the 32-year-old who loves to pull on the green-and gold Australian kit and still sees a future for the format. “There’s obviously those other opportunities in terms of franchise cricket and that’s good,” Zampa told reporters. “There’s opportunities to go and improve yourself at different franchise levels, even if they are going on at the same time which seems to be the case at the moment. “But it feels like playing for your country is still the priority. “I don’t know what it’s going to

Australia’s Adam Zampa. – REUTERSPIX

Usyk released after Poland detention

UNDISPUTED heavyweight world champion Oleksandr Usyk has been released after detention by law-enforcement officers at Poland’s Krakow airport, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said yesterday. “I was outraged by this attitude towards our citizen and champion,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app. “Our champion was released and no one is detaining him anymore.” It was not immediately clear why the 37-year-old Usyk was detained. The WBC, WBO and WBA champion, who also won gold at the 2012 London Olympics, has been a national hero aiding Kyiv’s war efforts. Poland’s foreign and interior ministries did not immediately reply to Reuters’ requests for comments.

video. Usyk beat Tyson Fury in May to become undisputed heavyweight boxing world champion in a thrilling contest at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh. The 37-year-old Ukrainian is the first boxer to hold all four major heavyweight belts at the same time and the first undisputed champ since the end of Lennox Lewis’ reign in April 2000. Usyk’s charity fund, Usyk Foundation, aids Kyiv’s forces in the war that Russia launched with a full scale invasion against Ukraine in 2022. It buys, among others, ambulances and delivers humanitarian aid to the front line. Usyk’s wife, Yekaterina Usyk, who posted a blurred photo of her husband surrounded by uniformed officers, said in an Instagram post in English that she was thankful her husband was free after a misunderstanding. – Reuters

“Friends, everything is fine,” Usyk said in an Instagram post. “There was a misunderstanding that was quickly resolved. Thank you to everyone who was concerned.” He added, “Respect to the Polish law enforcement officers who perform their duties regardless of height, weight, arm span, and titles.” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X that his ministry will contact the Polish foreign ministry, as it considered the detention “disproportionate and unacceptable in relation to our champion.” Polish TVP Info , a television news channel run by state broadcaster TVP , published a social media video on its website showing Polish law enforcement officers walking the handcuffed Usyk through what appeared to be an airport. Reuters was not able to independently verify the