The best laid plans for the biggest fight in the life of Daniel Dubois were thrown into disarray by chaos at Stansted.
The Ryanair flight scheduled to bring Dubois directly to Poland on Sunday evening in readiness for this Saturday’s mandatory challenge to world heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk was one of many cancelled at the airport.
Dubois had to revert to a long £280 cab ride to Heathrow, where they arrived at an airport hotel at 2am.
After three and a half hours’ sleep he and his team were woken to catch an early Monday flight to DUsseldorf. After waiting for a connecting plane they arrived in Wrocław 24 hours later than intended.
‘It was chaos when we got to Stansted, ‘ says Dubois. ‘Ryanair….for f***’s sake! There was an evacuation of the departures hall going on.
Daniel Dubois’ (above) fight with Oleksandr Usyk was thrown into chaos when DDD’s flight to Poland was cancelled from Stansted airport
He was forced take £280 cab ride to Heathrow, sleep at the airport and catch a connecting plane to Dusseldorf after his Ryainair flight from Standsted was cancelled
Dubois and Usyk will fight for the WBA, IBF, WBO and Ring Magazine world titles on Saturday
‘People were screaming and fainting and there were some fights going on. Mad. Crazy. We had to get out. My dad for one couldn’t stand it.
‘We were all tired when we got here having missed a day’s preparations. But I got a good night’s sleep and we’re back on track now.’
Don Charles, Dubois’ new trainer, says: Daniel is relaxed now. We’ve adjusted to the lost day and he’s ready to go.’
Dubois and Usyk took part in a courteous final media conference. The highlight was the presentation to Usyk of an artwork created from used shells from the Ukrainian battlefield by troops with whom he spent time recently.