Frazer Clarke a winner as British Lionhearts win 24 hours after witnessing London terror attack
Friday 24 March 2017 08:40, UK
Frazer Clarke felt he had to fight for the British Lionhearts on Thursday night only just over 24 hours after watching the London terror attack unfold.
The super-heavyweight, a sparring partner of heavyweight superstar Anthony Joshua, was at the Palace of Westminster with some of his Lionhearts team-mates and their Italia Thunder opponents when the terror attack took place on Wednesday afternoon.
Fellow British boxers Pat McCormack, Calum French and Muhammad Ali, and their Bulgarian team-mate Radoslav Pantaleev, were also present as the tragic events unfolded.
The World Series of Boxing event at the York Hall in Bethnal Green went ahead as planned, although the British fighters and their coach Tony Davis - among those to try in vain to save the life of one of the victims, PC Keith Palmer - all admitted it had been tough to focus.
All five Lionhearts fighters won their bouts in a 5-0 victory, and afterwards Clarke, who beat Guido Vianello, said: "It was the atmosphere: everyone's talking about it, I couldn't get away from it.
"But I'm not the victim; I was able to box.
"If we can't get in there and fight after what we saw, how does everyone there get on with their lives? Police officers lost colleagues, families, friends. We were the lucky ones so we had every reason to get in there and put a show on.
"Everything's gone through my head. But someone was looking down on us; we didn't go out there [in time to be caught up in the attack]."
McCormack overcame Vincenzo Mangiacapre at welterweight, and he added: "It was horrible. We were right in front of it. I didn't really sleep much. My head was a bit all over and I couldn't really stop thinking about it.
"We had a meeting, a talk. The coaches handled it very well. As everyone was running away [Davis] was running to aid. He saw a lot more than us and was a bit shook up. I respect him very much for doing that."
