WOULD FLY HIGH

McCracken on the talk six years ago that convinced him of Joshua’s potential

TONY BELLEW JOSHUA KO “I’m hoping for a Joshua win. I think if he goes out there and does what he’s been doing to his previous opponents, then he wins inside four.”

IT was at 30,000 feet up that Rob McCracken knew Anthony Joshua would hit great heights.

McCracken, the guiding light in Joshua’s amateur and professional career, was chatting to his charge on the flight back from the 2011 European Championships in Ankara.

After just three weeks’ training, Joshua had lost in the quarterfinals, narrowly missing out on a medal, and McCracken knew from his confident attitude his career was ready for take-off.

There was not a hint of self-pity from Joshua, just a determination to go one better at the World Championships in Baku four months later.

Joshua did, winning silver (after defeat in the final, right), which he turned into gold at London 2012, and a star was born.

“This probably sounds terrible, but I was probably fitter than Anthony when we took him to the Europeans,” said McCracken, who is GB Boxing’s performance director and Joshua’s trainer. “We’d only had him for three weeks and he wasn’t anywhere near ready.

“But me and the coaches thought we needed to have a look at him.

“He just missed out on a medal and I remember, on the plane back, talking to him. He was right up for it. He said, ‘I didn’t get a medal at the Europeans, but I’ll get a medal at the Worlds’.

“He was very positive, he wanted to do things in boxing and I thought this kid can really achieve something.

“When he did have the time to prepare properly for the Worlds, he just flew through the boxers. He won the silver medal when really he should have won the final.

“He learnt enough at the Worlds to go on and get the gold at the Olympics.”

Joshua had just returned to the GB programme after being suspended because the police had discovered him with a quantity of cannabis. McCracken argued strongly with then ABA chairman Derek Mapp that they should stand by Joshua and he is delighted he is repaying him so handsomely.

“I remember having a chat with Derek, and he was asking me about him,” he said. “There was an issue with Anthony and that’s why he came off the programme for a little bit.

“I pushed to keep him on it and, with Derek’s help, we were able to do that.” McCracken expects Joshua to be chilled about facing Wladimir Klitschko in front of a record 90,000 crowd at Wembley Stadium because he has been that way his whole career.

“The thing about Anthony is he isn’t fazed about boxing anybody,” he said.

“I remember in the Olympics when he drew the Cuban, Erislandy Savon, in the first round, and he just said, ‘Yeah, no problem. What time’s dinner?’. That’s him.”

McCracken (above with Joshua) earmarked him for the 2016 Games – not London, when he joined the GB programme in the autumn of 2010, after winning the ABAs.

But by the time Rio rolled around last summer, he was Olympic and IBF world heavyweight champion.

Joshua only took up boxing in 2007, aged 17, and McCracken says such a rapid rise is unprecedented.

“It’s meteoric what’s happened with him, because he’s done things in half the time that boxers would normally take,” he added.

“That’s mainly due to his belief in himself and his enthusiasm. His enthusiasm and natural ability just shone through, and he is able to step up whenever he needs to.

“It’s hard to put ABA-level boxers in with the best Cubans, Russians and Kazakhs, but he was doing that within months of joining us.

“It’s a fantastic story.”