Episode 4 The Clare Balding Show

Hello. Thank you very much. Hello and welcome to The Clare Balding

Sports Show and we have a power packed line-up tonight. My guests

have all reached the peak of their sports. They have world titles and

grand slam trophies to prove it. They have battled through rivals and

doubters, pain and adversity to become champions. She is the holder

of the Australian and Wimbledon doubles champions and holder of the

Wimbledon singles title, wheelchair tennis player Jordanne Whiley.

Father and son boxing riled the, we have got Barry McGuigan and his son

Shane McGuigan. Cash boxing royalty. First up, the man whose boxing CV

reads 26 victories, 24 knockouts. He is one of Britain's greatest ever

boxers. He became cruiserweight world champion in 2008 before moving

to heavyweight where he became world champion by beating a seven foot

giant. A loss to Wladimir Klitschko champion by beating a seven foot

and a debilitating shoulder injury have seen him away from the ring for

four years, that now this hard-hitting heavyweight is back. He

is always box office. Please welcome David Haye, the Hayemaker. How are

you? Very well. Nice to see you again and you are looking very fine.

Thank you. Kind of wild. It is a bit crazy, my training look. Will you

shave it off before the fight? I am having mixed feelings. Some people

say it is a crazy style, some people say it is a mess. You have achieved

everything you wanted to. Since I was a kid I wanted to be the

heavyweight champion of the world and I did that by beating a giant

guy. En route to that I wonder cruiserweight title, the weight

below heavyweight. I was not the biggest guy and I went up to fight

below heavyweight. I was not the the big guys. But I feel I have more

to give. I have achieved my goal, heavyweight champion, but I want to

do it again. When you are in training, you have to be quite

abstemious. What do you not allow yourself? You sacrifice the

pleasures you would have an normal, everyday life. Here is the thing. I

saw those. Can you smell them? Do you want one? It has been many a

moon since I had one of those. So, none of that. None of that, early

knights, no alcohol. That is the ROM. I will have a smell. You said

you hated training and you would rather be on a beach having ROM. But

once you are on the beach drinking that, you get bored. The novelty

wears off. I am sitting on the beach on my telephone watching the other

fighters thinking, I can beat that guy. Are you in better shape than

you were eight years ago? Yes, definitely. I am a different shape.

I am 35, but I am a young 35. I have not taken that much punishment. I

have only been the distance twice in my whole career and I have not been

bashed up. In terms of miles on the clock, I am in a good place. This

next phase, the final phase of my career, I can win all the world

titles again. The comeback fight is on January the 16th and it is on

Mark De Mori. You have picked the O2 Arena. It is a stone's throw away

from Bermondsey where I was born and bred. I won my first unification

fight at the O2 Arena in 2008. For me walking out there and the

electricity of the crowd, south London is fantastic and after three

and a half years to go back there and packed out the place and produce

a performance and fight a guy who has not lost in 11 years... He is

talking about doing horrible things to me. Exactly, who can imagine. We

have a clip from the press conference. You like to size each

other up. I am never sure whether you know what the other is going to

do. What do you call that? I think he got a bit nervous and wanted to

stick his head in a little bit. Are you meant to stare at each other? It

is romantic. He wanted to go for a kiss and then his head went in and I

pushed him off and told him to calm down. He has got plenty of time to

get close to meet on January the 16th, but I will be a bit more

violent. Has he got a nickname? He is The Dominator. You are generally

speaking quite a nice guy. Generally speaking. I have had my moments. I

know. Tell me five things about Mark De Mori that are positive. He has

got a nice haircut for starters. He has not lost in over a decade. He

has knocked out the same amount of fighters I have beaten, so he is

ranked in the top ten in the world, so that is positive. You can do it.

Giving you are in such a good mood about Mark, The Dominator, Give Him

A Message Of Love. Camera Four. Hello, Mark, I Hope You Are Well And

You Are Feeling Positive About The 16th. I Am Excited As Well And I Am

Sure Everyone At The O2 Arena Will Be Thrilled By Us Really Going At

It. I Know you want to really dominate me. But unfortunately I

will have to bring out the Hayemaker and bring you down for the count.

APPLAUSE I think we may have found a whole

new way of promoting boxing. You have an unusual superstition

before a fight. What do you have to do the day before? The day of the

fight? Yes. I tidy my hotel room and I walk out and I go to work. It is

time to introduce our next guest, the father and son whose family name

is synonymous with boxing success. Please welcome one of Britain's ever

greatest fighters, and his son who is currently working with David

Haye, Barry McGuigan and Shane McGuigan.

I just said to Barry that Shane has got the eyes, you have got the same

eyes. How did you end up working with David? He commentated on Carl

Frampton, my world champion's fights and four months ago we got the phone

call and we worked our way through it. After being on the couch or the

beach for three and a half years, it was a slow process. But we are here

and he is ready to fight next week. I came across this video. I would

love to know what this is about. This looks incredibly painful. What

is the point of it? Conditioning the guts to take the shots. Mark De Mori

talks about chopping David down, but we showed that want to put a

dampener on that. Does it hurt? It is not nice. There are a lot more

pleasurable experiences in life than is not nice. There are a lot more

that, but it does condition you. You can deal with all the crunches, but

it does not prepare you for an impact into the stomach. Right at

the end you land one that you think is a good bang. Look at your face.

You are nine years younger than David. Eight. That is unusual,

normally trainers are older and grizzled. What is it like taking

orders from a junior? Trainers who are 56 years old have not achieved

half of what he has. It is about your mindset and knowing what makes

a good coach. It is someone who is willing to adapt and learn and

improve themselves. Too many coaches are too rigid. Do it this way. Back

in 98 we did it this way, so you are going to do it. He is very

scientific in his approach and he knows about physiology and he is

learning to do different things and changing the training and I am

enjoying it and I can feel the difference in my body. That is why

he is the main man on the same. Last year, Barry, Mark your anniversary

of winning. You blink and 30 years go by, it is incredible. But I look

in the mirror, and what is not there... It used to be full of hair.

Your fight was on the BBC World Service on the radio. Is there a

story that Liam Neeson was trying to listen to all of it, but could not?

Liam Neeson was making the movie The Mission in South America with Robert

De Niro and he was listening to the fight and they were all waiting for

him to finish. It got to the 10th round and they said, you have got to

go, you we cannot wait any longer. He left a couple of the guys and

they came running up after he got his break and they said, you're man

lost. Oh, no, he said. They told him they were taking the Mickey and they

had a celebration. He was a massive boxing fan and was the

had a celebration. He was a massive heavyweight champion in the 70s. The

thing that made that fight special, you must have watched it, you were

not born, but you must have watched it... Yes, I have. And all the

build-up because your grandfather sang Danny boy before it. At the

time it was a traumatic time in Northern Ireland. Also in the

province of Ulster and I boxed all my

province of Ulster and I boxed all I did not want to move away and go

to England or America. I wanted to box from home. I thought it was very

important at that time and what they wanted to do, both political side,

they wanted you to nail your colours to the mast and I did not want to do

that. I wore a neutral colours, the blue colours of the United Nations

flag of peace. I was a unifying force. Please be with you and you

punch somebody in the face. It sounded like a contradiction in

terms. Leave the fighting to McGuigan and it had a profound

effect during a very difficult time. People really loved you. You had two

homecomings in Dublin and Belfast. 70,000 people gathered in an hour

and a half in Belfast. Then three days later I went to Dublin and we

had 200,000 people. It was remarkable. The Belfast Telegraph

came up the whole place, it was fantastic. You were probably the

most famous man in all of Ireland. Was there a time when you felt

vulnerable? In relation to the troubles? Yes. It was around the

time people were being kidnapped and a couple of eminent judges were

kidnapped and Shergar and all of that, so I was issued with a gun and

taught how to shoot it. I was rubbish. I could not hit a barn

door, so it was a scary time. So, as a kid I did not take it seriously,

but I think it was a genuine threat. You are very aware of what you

represented and the role you could play. With that in mind, what is

your view, all three, of Tyson Fury, the man, the

I thought he was wrong to say what he said, but he is a fantastic

character. He is a funny guy, but he does say isn't terribly

inappropriate stuff, and shouldn't say it. But he is a big character

and you're going to get that. So, panto villain, really? OK, I will

agree with that. Shame, would you train him? No, to be honest, I

wouldn't. I don't think we would be able to work together. Maybe a clash

of personalities. But I think he is doing good things, he has dethroned

Klitschko who has been there for a long time, and it is mixing it up.

And it is just the right time for David to come back. Apart from this

one problem, which is that David says he would never fight you

because he doesn't want to give you the chance of winning those titles

stop I don't really care about beating him or not. As long as I

have the belt, I am not losing if I don't fight him. Given I have three

boxes on the sofa, and as a child, I thought I was a boxer, not in the

way you thought you were a boxer, but as in a boxer dog, that is me

with Candy. I genuinely looked at her and thought I must look like

that. I thought we would test the power of your punch, and I will have

a go as well. Don't show me up! It is one of these machines. You think

they are safe until you see them really hurt like this.

So, bearing that in mind, we shall treat this with respect. David, it

is going to cost us too much to ensure you, so you can't do it, but

you can help me. Everyone thinks punching is from the arms, but it is

from the legs. You have to crouch down and explode through. And this

angle is probably better? Aim at my hand here. No, don't put your hand

there! We just said, we can't hurt you! Go through the target, all the

way through it. There we go! APPLAUSE

That is a respectable number. OK, Shane, your go. I will go for

the left, because my right hand is a bit sore. It is the momentum!

Barry, 902 to beat. CHEERING

Kanai reach it? I will try it. You can see the family competitiveness!

APPLAUSE CHEERING

Shane has it. Let's go back to the sofa, I can take these off.

It is time now to welcome our final guest. She has won all for tennis

grand slams despite the fact that was claimed she would never be able

to play sport. Let's see her in action.

WIMBLEDON THEME. Please welcome the only British

player to have achieved a calendar Grand Slam, Jordanne Whiley!

CHEERING Welcome to the show, and just a

quick run through your credits. You are one of only a handful of

players to have won a calendar Grand Slam, so all four major titles. You

hold the Wimbledon and Australian doubles titles and the US open

single title. APPLAUSE

So, the last couple of years have been sensational, haven't they?

Pretty much. The last 18 months or so was probably the best of my

career. It is kind of like a dream come true, because I went from that

stage of not really winning much and not being seen as a threat to

suddenly winning pretty much everything, so it has been crazy.

How did you get started in sport given that the doctors said you

shouldn't and couldn't do it? My dad was a former Paralympian, and when I

was born, he went into tennis just as a hobby, and I just wanted to be

like dad, really. So he took me to a competition in Israel when I was

three years old, and I watched him play, and I thought, I can do that.

And then someone gave me a racket and ball. How old are you there?

Three. With a broken leg. How many bones broken before the age of 12?

26. Because of brittle bone disease? Yes, and all in my legs. So tennis

wasn't necessarily a safe option. Yes, because the doctor said, keep

away from sport. And I said to my parents, there is no way I can keep

away from sport. My dad was from a sporting background, and when he saw

me trying to take up tennis, he said, you are looking good. He said

I was hitting the ball as sweet as in not. We had a brief conversation

touching on boxing about the discipline that you need to have, at

the same is true in tennis, because you must at times feel very

aggressive and you want to just whack the ball, but you have to be

patient. Yes, and that is something I have really learned in the last 18

stop I used to be really aggressive, because tennis is a really chilled

sport, I am not like you going out trying to kill my opponent or

anything, but anger management was probably some information. I used to

smash up brackets, scream, smack balls out of the court. It wasn't

going to get me very far, so it is just learning to control that anger

and channel it into your tennis. Read Mike

but the skill the skill of what you do. If you put

Novak Djokovic into a chair, he wouldn't be able to do what you do.

I have seen him try! One of the greatest tennis players of all time.

You can have the skills and the shot and the mental side of it, but it is

the actual movement of the chair that is key in wheelchair tennis. I

guess it is like you with your footwork, you have to be on it. We

have to be quick, and we can't use our feet, so our brain isn't

connected to something, we have to learn it ourselves. Do you have to

anticipate where the ball is going to get to that spot. You can't

respond it after the ball has been hit. Yes, and we can't go sideways,

so we have to actually turn. Kszczot in wheelchair tennis that is very --

a shot in wheelchair tennis that is very effective is the shot behind.

Other run the same? Yes, apart from we are allowed to bounces. -- two

bounces. You can see here your upper body strength, how strong you are.

Yes, it we obviously don't really need our legs, so it is all other

body strength. It depends on different people, because they have

different disabilities. Myself, I have full core, but some people can

be paralysed from here, so they just literally have shoulders. Shoulders

is the main thing, we get a lot of injuries because we are, the doing

this, and you get rounded shoulders, you have to take good care of your

body. So you have four Grand Slam titles, all of which you have one

before, two of what you are defending this year, and a

Paralympic medal that you got, a bronze in London, the chance of

another rate. If you are going to give me a David Haye, I am

brilliant, talk, how do you feel? When I woke up on January the 1st, I

had a panic about how close it was to the Paralympics. But this is what

I have trained for my whole life, and this will bow by -- we might

third Paralympics, and I feel like it is time for me to step up, with

the great year had the art last year, I am hoping just carry on. If

I come back from Rio without a gold medal, I will be seriously angry. So

I am going to work really hard this year. I love that, that is fighting

talk! And the big bonus this year will be Wimbledon, as well. I am so

excited. It has been a long time coming, having singles at Wimbledon,

now it is the right time for that. The standard wheelchair tennis is so

high now, and to compete there will just be incredible. Everybody wants

to be Wimbledon champion, don't they? I do! So that will be high on

my list before Rio. So you are involved in promoting your sport in

lots of ways, and obviously Paralympic sport more generally, and

you are quite prepared to go a long way to help promote your sport, I'm

due? I am. I love my sport. I might have taken off a few layers of

clothing... It is a great shot, and very artistically done so nothing is

revealed in the photo, but you are there in your chair wearing nothing

in a room full of stop yes. It was strange, I had never done anything

like that before. It was a really fun experience. The photo is

amazing. David isn't shy about taking his clothes off, are you?

Apparently so. Have you never seen that shot? The best thing, you look

like you are on the tube and just haven't got your clothes on! It was

for testicular cancer awareness. Any excuse! One of the highlights of the

festive season in terms of sports fans was this effort from Mike

Tyson. Trying out the gift I think for his daughter. Come on, Mike. You

look so cool. Why! That is like a tree being felled, isn't it? Just

see it again in slow motion. Did he catch it on the carpet or something?

Ouch. Good thing he is a tough guy. Would you have knocked him out in

his prime? No. I'm glad you honest about that, because Shane was

shaking his head full. Is your pain threshold five? I don't like pain. I

like dishing it out. When I have to against really big eyes, the

adrenaline is going, it takes the sting out of it. But the next day

after the fight, that is the pain. And you can get pain management

tips, because your pain threshold is high, isn't it Jordanne? I have been

through 26 breaks of my legs, so, it has to be. Some of the worst things

that have ever happened, I had two metal rods about this size pulled

out of my bone while I was still awake. The doctor said, it isn't

going to hurt, it will be fine, and he started yanking it out, and I was

the this really hurts. And one time I broke my room while I was playing

a match, and it really hurt, I imagine you are getting beat up all

the time that in a noncontact sport, that was a big shock to me. I said

to my doubles partner and said, I have broken my red Omeyer headed

crack. And she said don't you pull out, we are nearly winning! I was

playing terribly, but we won in the end. Hard-core. It is so interesting

to hear from all of you about your different experiences. I get the

sense from Barry and shame that you are loving this moment of David

coming back, but Carl Frampton, as well. He is a phenomenal talent, and

I think he is going to end up one of the best ever trainers of all time.

It is a bold statement, he has a big fight coming up at the end of

February, and it is a tough, tough fight. But he is so talented and

skilful and disciplined, and I think he will come through with flying

colours. You trained him every day. I used a box with him, so I see that

transition in helping him achieve his goals, and now our next game is

February the 27th. Good luck with that, and David, good luck on

January the 16th, and thank you so much, and Jordanne, good luck in

Australia, thank you. We have reached the end of the show, but

make sure you come back, because next time we have Max Whitlock, one

of the nation was my greatest adventurers, Sarah Putin, and ahead

of walking seven marathons in seven days, comedienne Jo Brand will be

here. A huge thank you to all my guests, thank you to the audience

and thank you at home for watching. Good night.

APPLAUSE