After 22 months and four cancelled fights, Isaac Chamberlain was finally back in the ring on Saturday – in surreal circumstances forced by Covid-19. This is the story of four days inside the bubble
“We’re in the bubble, bro,” Isaac Chamberlain exclaimed as, rather than bumping elbows, he gave me a bear-like hug in a Covid testing room at a Holiday Inn on the outskirts of Redditch, near Birmingham, last Thursday morning. It was easy to understand the 26-year-old boxer’s readiness to demolish social distancing measures because he was just 60 hours away from making his return to the ring. We also knew that, as soon as we had been tested, we would be confined to a strict quarantine. It was one last embrace before another lockdown.
The Brixton cruiserweight was desperate to resume his career which had been put on hold the previous 22 months. A chain of small catastrophes – including the jailing of his American promoter, broken promises and the onset of a global pandemic – meant that his past four scheduled fights had been cancelled. But Chamberlain, who is one of boxing’s most intelligent and intriguing fighters, was on the cusp of a comeback in the sport’s first promotion on British terrestrial television since the coronavirus turned the world upside down.
Written by Donald McRae
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/aug/27/boxing-in-the-bubble-isaac-chamberlain-interview under the title “
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