boxing

With London 2012 underway, ForeignStudents.com Editor Andy describes his experience of one of the events live.

After applying for dozens of tickets for the London 2012 Olympics earlier this year, I got a grand total of two. They were for boxing at the ExCel Centre, and the big day finally came around yesterday.

With all the warnings of packed tubes and gridlocked streets, we were preparing for the worst. However, the trains all ran perfectly and we even got to pretend we were drivingone of them (as you should always do on the driverless DLR line- pictured below). Everything ran so smoothly that we even had time for a couple of pre-event pints after we arrived at ExCel an hour and a half early.

Two British fighters rocked the boxing world this weekend after a bare-knuckle fight broke out between them during a press conference. After former champion David Haye turned up as Dereck Chisora was being interviewed, tempers quickly flared before violence broke out.

The Ugly Build Up

The whole episode was worthy of an Oscar, and it gets a little complicated, so stay with me. Let's take Chisora first. He was in Germany last week for the biggest fight of his life, against Ukrainian Heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko. Despite being a relatively unknown fighter, Chisora had already made headlines after he slapped Vitali during the weigh in. Controversy continued to follow him after he spat water in the face of Vitali's brother Wladimir Klitschko after entering the ring.

During the fight itself, Chisora actually impressed most people. Despite losing, he lasted the full 12 rounds, rarely looking too troubled by a fighter with vastly more experience and ability than him. However, that fight was soon to become just a footnote for the unplanned brawl that happened just a few hours later during the press conference.

Two giants of British sport will hopefully both be reaching the pinnacle of their careers this weekend as UK sport comes to the attention of the world. At Wimbledon Andy Murray is playing in the semi-finals today, whilst on Saturday night, boxer David Haye will be taking part in the biggest heavyweight fight of the decade.

Murray Mania

First up is men's semi-finals day at Wimbledon which starts at 1pm this afternoon. The single British hope Andy Murray is playing Rafael Nadal in the second match on Centre Court in a repeat of last year's semi-final. Nadal comfortably won last year and looks to be in good form again this year, but Murray is in a confident mood:

"I know I'll have to run and run, I know it will be physically and mentally tough, but I also know I can win."

If he manages to pull of a surprise and beat the world number 1, then Murray will be able to look forward to playing in the Wimbledon Final on Sunday against the winner of the other semi-final between Novak Djokovic and Wilfred Tsonga.