Anthony Yarde vows to use personal tragedies as fuel for improvement

Few fighters were hit harder by the coronavirus pandemic than Anthony Yarde, who lost his father and grandmother within the span of a week. Now, the light heavyweight contender says that he’ll use those tragedies as “fuel” to get stronger.

“You need to mourn, you need to be upset, to give yourself time to replenish. Then you use it all as fuel to get stronger. I’ll get stronger. I want to make all my family proud, particularly my mum Sonia. Ninety percent of everything I do is for her, but this has all added to that drive.”

Yarde (19-1, 18 KO) also says that training has helped him keep his mind off of the circumstances.

“I am still mourning, really. For me, it has been important to get back focused on boxing. I have been going for a lot of bike rides or runs, exercising indoors. I have been watching a lot of comedy films, anything really that keeps your mind off it, but training helps most with that, knowing I have a job to do.”

The 28-year-old Essex man was slated to face undefeated countryman Lyndon Arthur as part of the April 11th Daniel Dubois-Joe Joyce card, his second fight since an August 2019 loss to Sergey Kovalev. That event is tentatively rescheduled for July 11th, but Frank Warren has stated that he doesn’t wish to hold a domestic clash of that magnitude without an audience.

Whatever the case, Yarde remains one of the highest-ranked WBO light heavyweight contenders not currently slated to participate in their title tournament, and could be a couple of good wins away from another crack at the title once things go back to semi-normal.