| Venue: O2 Arena, London Date: Sunday, 27 February |
| Coverage: Commentary on BBC Radio 5 Live from 21:00 GMT; textual content commentary on the BBC Sport web site & app. |
Before the phrase was widespread, Cheavon Clarke was speaking about “levelling up”. It was how he acquired began in boxing.
Clarke was attempting to boost his sport as a footballer when he joined an novice boxing membership, aged 18.
“My ethos is to stage up,” he says. “I used to play soccer and I performed at a good stage, an affordable stage. I may maintain my very own. I simply wished to get fitter so I may go a bit of bit tougher than everyone else as a result of I’m at all times attempting to stage up.
“That’s the way it occurred. It wasn’t like I deliberate to go along with boxing. It was simply by chance.”
But after a primary session collectively, Clarke was taken apart by Jason Weeks, considered one of his novice trainers.
“He goes, ‘You’re actually good you’re. You may very well be a world champion,'” Clarke remembers. “In my head I used to be considering this man’s chatting rubbish. He may see one thing I could not.
“Jason was the precise coach that made me suppose, ‘Oh yeah, I may very well be one thing.'”
Moving on from Olympic disappointment
Now 31, Clarke has been a two-time nationwide novice champion and a Tokyo Olympian. On Sunday, he faces his first skilled bout, at London’s O2 Arena – taking on Croatia’s Tony Visic as a part of a card topped by Lawrence Okolie’s cruiserweight world title defence towards Michal Cieslak.
“I may let you know that I by no means had an concept about boxing, the entire entire Matchroom [his promoter] and all the opposite those who play an element in boxing,” he says.
“That’s all simply current. I by no means had a dream of going to the Olympics, I by no means had a dream of being a boxer -it’s all turn into part of the journey.”
Clarke competed on the 2014 Commonwealth Games for Jamaica, the place he was born, however suffered disappointment in Glasgow, going out within the first spherical. He drifted from the game. Weeks and Lenny Trust, his coaches on the Gravesham membership, introduced him back.
He first gained the English Elite title in 2016, beating Chris Billam Smith, now the European cruiserweight champion, within the ultimate.
He switched to competing for Great Britain – having lived within the nation for the reason that age of 10 – and began to make a reputation for himself on the worldwide circuit. At 91kg, he took on a few of the greatest novice heavyweights round – the towering Russian pair of Evgeny Tishchenko, an Olympic gold medallist, and Muslim Gadzhimagomedov, a world champion and Olympic silver medallist, in addition to Erislandy Savon, the Cuban who gave Anthony Joshua such issues at London 2012.
“And I have never been outclassed by any of them,” Clarke factors out. “None of them.”
He took silver on the 2017 Europeans, a bronze on the 2018 Commonwealths and certified for the delayed Tokyo 2020 Games.
The Olympics won’t have been his unique dream, however he was totally decided to succeed. He centered on one factor: “Medal and medal solely.”
“That’s all that mattered,” he provides. “No disrespect to anyone, I’ve mentioned it already, however I’m not about this factor of simply participating. No, sorry, that is not my customary.”
That made it a lot tougher to tolerate one other first-round defeat, dropping in Japan to Brazilian Abner Teixeira. His time in Tokyo, his half within the Team GB expertise ended all too abruptly.
The restrictions of the pandemic meant that after that break up choice defeat, he had 48 hours to vacate the athletes’ village and fly dwelling alone, and not using a medal in his pocket.
“It was the most effective worst expertise of your life,” he says. “But I’ve accepted it. That’s the principle factor. I’ve moved on from it now. So the extent up continues.”
Cheating demise twice
If Clarke’s attribute exuberance was shaken, it was short-term. He is nothing if not resilient. After all, he has virtually died. Twice.
He was simply six years previous the primary time he was instructed he’d flatlined. He’d fallen from his home in Jamaica and was impaled on a metallic spike.
“It’s very imprecise,” Cheavon says of these reminiscences. “I keep in mind having that colostomy bag by my facet. That was fairly fascinating.”
Clarke was older the following time. Not lengthy after he’d taken up novice boxing, he had what he thought was a abdomen ache.
“This ache was killing me,” he says . “I am unable to let you know. This ache was onerous. If you’ve got ever had appendix issues, you’ll know. I simply put it off. I put it off and put it off and was simply consuming ginger tea… it did not work.”
Having tried and failed to seek out some antacid ache reduction, after collapsing on his stairs, ultimately he was taken to hospital.
He remembers: “You stroll into the desk at A&E and the girl, I’ll always remember, she went, ‘The wait is 5 hours.’ I went, ‘Take me dwelling.’ I used to be going up the steps once more and, no phrase of a lie, I acquired to the center of the steps this time and I simply form of like dropped.”
An ambulance, blue lights flashing, sped him back to hospital. There was no five-hour wait this time. That’s when he knew it was dangerous.
“I simply keep in mind it being hella chilly,” he mentioned. A white cup to take a few tablets was the very last thing he noticed earlier than he misplaced consciousness.
The subsequent time he opened his eyes, he seen the sunshine. “The physician got here up,” Cheavon remembers. “He goes, ‘Mr. Clarke, you are a really fortunate man. We needed to do the whole lot we may to avoid wasting your life.’ Because my appendix had erupted. When it explodes, you are meant to be poisoned and die.”
That was shut sufficient. “I really feel like John McClane from Die Hard: ‘Still alive!'” he provides cheerfully.
“I believe the third time, I will not be so fortunate.”
