Watching the super-heavyweight boxers during my lunch break at McDonald’s, I was inspired to train for Rio and be a world champion. Suddenly my life began
n the summer of 2012, it felt as if everyone in London was watching the Olympics. It was the same for us, on our lunch break in the McDonald’s staff room. I felt as if I was on the journey with those athletes – every punch that was thrown, every stride on the sprint. I loved watching Usain Bolt and the British boxers Anthony Joshua and Nicola Adams.
If you’d been at my school and wondered which one of us might end up being an athlete, I wouldn’t be in the lineup – I’d be in the canteen. The others would be playing football at lunchtime, but I’d be waiting for seconds. By the time I was 19 and working at McDonald’s, I had joined a boxing gym and I’d started to drop weight, but I only went once or twice a week, in a failing attempt to keep fit. Nobody would have said I could have been an Olympian.
I looked at Joshua’s rise – he won the big amateur tournament in London, then he was English champion, British champion, won silver at the World Championships and gold at the Olympics. I could set targets like that. Accomplishing them was a different thing, but I could see the path. My friends and family thought I was crazy, but they supported me and kept me accountable. If you have good people around you who know your goal, they push you towards it. When I wanted to go out and have a drink, or a second piece of cake, it was: “Mate, don’t you have the Olympics to go to?” It was still hard – I’d be tired mentally from uni and have to train. I’d say no to parties I wanted to say yes to. All I had was this dream, but no guarantee I’d get there.