chance Archives - Hoang Viet

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Sep 21 2024

Anthony Joshua has chance at greatness, but must defeat ‘incredibly dangerous’ Dubois to become three-time world champion | UK News

Back fighting at Wembley for the first time since 2020, Anthony Joshua has the chance tonight to put himself into a small, elite group of heavyweights.

To be a three-time heavyweight champion of the world is a rare thing – only five men have done it.

Publicly Joshua said it is not his priority: “It would be phenomenal, but greatness is in character as well.

“If you’re a good person, you’re a great person, you don’t need a title.”

But his promoter Eddie Hearn said he understands what the win would mean.

“I think this is the first time I’ve heard him allude a little bit to the legacy part because for him it’s all about the performance,” he told Sky News.

“But he knows what’s on the line on Saturday. It’s a very small group – three-times heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis – there aren’t many.

“I think he’d realise the magnitude of what this would mean and how it would position him for a shot at the Fury vs Usyk 2 winner.”

There’s no doubt Joshua wants the win desperately, his fifth in a row since a double loss to Oleksandr Usyk. Lose tonight and he’s back down the pecking order with another rebuild ahead of him at the age of 36.

He said it’s a “must-win fight – I’m going to do my best – what will be will be”.

“I want to win (this) a lot – a lot – I work hard, I work really hard, I kept my head down and what will be will be now and I’ll leave it to the big man upstairs,” Joshua said.

But Hearn describes a possible defeat as a catastrophe – and says it is a “what if” question that has been asked a lot.

“Since the Andy Ruiz loss people have asked that question,” he tells Sky News, “but [Joshua’s] enjoying boxing more than ever in my opinion”.

“He looks better than ever, he’s more of a complete fighter than ever, but of course when you lose it’s catastrophic.

“The difference here between winning and losing is a very wide margin – if you win, you issue yourself as almost king of the sport.

“If you lose, you’ve lost to Daniel Dubois, the younger fighter, it’s a bigger climb back up to the top. We must win on Saturday night.”

Daniel Dubois, his younger opponent by nine years, stands in the way and he has it all to prove.

The holder of the IBF belt, he was awarded that world title in June as a result of winning an eliminator bout against Filip Hrgovic, and because Usyk wasn’t in a position to defend it due to his upcoming rematch with Tyson Fury.

He’s young, he’s hungry, he’s on a roll.

“It’s all meant to be. I’m in the right place at the right time, I just need to stay in my bubble,” he said.

“I need to legitimise it, win and show the world that I’m the man.”

Hearn recognises the danger of Dubois, who famously rocked AJ during a sparring session when he was younger.

“He’s incredibly dangerous,” he said. “People keep asking me if [Dubois will] be able to control his emotions and the madness of 96,000, and I think the answer is no and that makes him more dangerous.

“Because whatever the game plan is, I think he is going to come out like a train, come out wild and that makes him more dangerous – but he can also walk on to something big from Anthony Joshua early in the fight.

“I cannot imagine a world where this fight goes 12 rounds. These are two very fast very big punching heavyweights they’re dangerous every second of this fight.”

Frank Warren, the veteran promoter of Dubois, thinks it’s time for his man to show what he’s made of and it could be a “changing of the guard” in the heavyweight scene.

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“I’ve got a lot of faith in him, he’s on a really good roll at the moment but so is AJ. I feel this could be his moment – he’s a big, big puncher,” Warren said.

“It’s part of the business, this what he has to do – step up and show what he’s all about. It comes with the territory: you’ve either got it or you ain’t got it.

“When he gets in that ring on Saturday, you’ve got blinkers on. Forget about the crowd, forget about everybody and look what’s in front of you.”

For Hearn, the occasion – a packed Wembley, a scenario Joshua has been comfortable with many times – could be the deciding factor. He has no doubts about the way his fighter will handle it.

“The way he carries himself, he’s been here so many times before,” he said.

“When you walk out on Saturday in front of 96,000 to have a fight with another 6ft 5 gentleman in front of the world, you better hold yourself together.

“I know AJ won’t have a problem holding himself together but it’s still a dangerous, dangerous task.”

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Jul 10 2024

Buckingham Palace visitors to get chance to re-enact iconic Royal Family balcony moment… almost | UK News

Members of the public are getting their chance to have their own balcony moment at Buckingham Palace… almost.

For the first time ever the centre room behind the palace’s famous balcony will open to groups of visitors.

Next week, ticket holders will have the opportunity to look around the room where the royal family gather on big occasions before stepping out to see the public.

But rather than being allowed out onto the balcony the doors will remain shut and they’ll have the chance to look at the view down the Mall through the net curtains instead.

The tour of the East Wing is a new addition to the annual palace summer opening.

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Almost 6,000 tickets were made available but were sold out within hours of going on sale in April.

Caroline de Guitaut, surveyor of the King’s works of art, said: “It was Prince Albert’s idea to have a balcony at Buckingham Palace, because he saw it as a way of enabling the royal family to connect with the people, and of course that’s exactly how, in a sense, it continues to be used on important occasions.

“But it began to be used very early on in Queen Victoria’s reign, from 1851 waving off the troops to the Crimean War and welcoming them back on return.”

The palace’s East Wing was built between 1847 and 1849 to accommodate Queen Victoria’s growing family, and the development enclosed the former open horse-shoe shaped royal residence.

For the past five years it’s been undergoing refurbishment work. More than 3,500 pieces of art had to be removed and safely stored. Around 47,000 floorboards had to be removed and re-laid.

Guided tours of the East Wing will take visitors along much of the 240ft-long principal corridor, and include the yellow drawing room and centre room behind the balcony.

The yellow drawing room features an oriental-style fireplace from George IV’s seaside pleasure palace – the Brighton Pavilion, an elaborate gilded curtain rail and even some of the pavilion’s wallpaper that was discovered in storage by George V’s wife, Queen Mary and hung at her request.

Highlights in the centre room include a newly restored glass chandelier, shaped to resemble a lotus flower, and two Chinese 18th-century imperial silk wall hangings, presented to Victoria by Guangxu, Emperor of China, to mark her Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

While tickets for the East Wing tour are sold out, visitors with a standard ticket for the place’s state rooms will be able to tour the 19 rooms used by the royal family for official entertaining.

In the ballroom, they can view artist Jonathan Yeo’s new portrait of the King, with its striking red background.

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Apr 15 2024

Constance Marten and Mark Gordon trial: Couple’s newborn baby ‘did not stand a chance’, court hears | UK News

A newborn baby girl who died after being taken to live in a tent in wintry conditions would still be alive if it was not for her parents’ actions, according to prosecutors.

Constance Marten, 36, and her partner Mark Gordon, 49, are accused of several charges, including manslaughter by gross negligence and causing or allowing the death of a child.

Marten had told “big fat lies” over her daughter’s death – lies that “fell from her mouth like confetti in the wind when she gave evidence”, prosecutors alleged, adding Gordon “did not dare” to give evidence, with his “silence deafening”.

Their Old Bailey trial has heard how the couple went on the run from authorities in early 2023 in an attempt to keep baby Victoria after their four older children were taken into care.

They lived off-grid in a “flimsy” tent on the South Downs during last winter, and in her “very short life” Victoria “did not stand a chance”, the court was told.

In a closing speech on Monday, prosecutor Tom Little KC said: “That is the cold, hard, brutal reality of this case. There is no point in soft-soaping it.

“Baby Victoria would still be alive if it was not for the actions and inactions of these two defendants. Nobody else is to blame are they?”

‘Neglected and exposed to dangerous conditions’

Mr Little described Victoria as a “freezing cold baby girl with just a single babygrow and one vest, no hat”, who was “neglected and exposed to dangerous conditions”.

The court heard Victoria was found dead in a supermarket “bag for life” wearing just a soiled nappy and hidden beneath “waste and detritus” in a disused allotment shed in Brighton on 1 March last year.

The pair, who had abandoned their car after it burst into flames near Bolton, Greater Manchester, on 5 January 2023, were arrested in Brighton a few weeks later on 27 February.

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The prosecutor alleged Marten had told “big fat lies”, including her claim that a buggy – bought and discarded in London the same day – had a “sub-zero sleeping bag” on it, unlike the one shown to the jury with a “foot muff”.

Pointing to the replica buggy exhibited in court, Mr Little said: “There was going to be some kind of muff-off in this case between this version, and this mythical version.”

Not only was Marten’s version a “demonstrable lie”, it was delivered with “self-righteous indignation” as part of a “well-crafted” act to “pull the wool” over jurors’ eyes, Mr Little went on.

The defendants, of no fixed address, deny manslaughter by gross negligence, perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty and causing or allowing the death of a child.

The Old Bailey trial continues.

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Sep 28 2023

Reduced chance of winter power blackouts despite loss of coal back-up – grid operator | Business News

The risk of the lights going out is down this winter, with power margins almost back to levels seen before the energy crisis, according to an eagerly awaited report.

National Grid ESO’s annual winter outlook, which assesses its own readiness for the coldest months of November to March, said it only saw a matter of minutes when the balance between supply and demand would not be met.

It forecast a margin of 7.4% capacity.

That means it expects to have 4.4 gigawatts (GW) of power in hand to meet its reliability standard.

The figure represents an improvement on the 6.3% (3.7 GW) that was expected this time last year when Russia’s war with Ukraine – and sanctions to punish Russia for its invasion – squeezed gas supplies across Europe, forcing energy prices up to unprecedented levels.

Struggles for nuclear output in France last year also placed a greater strain on UK resources.

The latest report concluded, however, that the Grid was still likely to have to issue so-called “margin notices” over winter for periods when the supply-demand balance is especially tight.

These are calls for power generators to provide as much as they can to the network.

That was despite more domestic generation being available, the Grid said, along with increased levels of battery storage and the ability to share power with other nations including France and Belgium.

The operator will also have the Demand Flexibility Service (DFS), introduced last year, to fall back on again as an additional tool.

The scheme will see signatory households and businesses paid for turning off power-intensive appliances at times when power availability is stretched.

The DFS was utilised during a cold snap at the end of last winter following numerous test events that the Grid said had, when combined, saved enough electricity to power nearly 10 million homes.

Craig Dyke, the ESO’s head of national control, said of the blackout risk: “Compared to last year it is almost going back to around where it was before last winter.

“So the risks that we talked about last year, the probability of them occurring, are much, much lower.”

The main challenge facing the Grid this autumn is the loss of five coal-fired power plants that were held in reserve last winter.

They were able to be fired up in readiness to produce electricity when, for example, the wind did not blow but talks with EDF and Drax during the spring failed to produce a deal on new standby contracts.

Because there is no coal back-up to call on if margins become tight, gas and nuclear capacity becomes more essential.

A separate report by National Gas, which operates Britain’s gas grid, said it did not foresee higher exports to Europe this year due to improved storage levels on the continent.

As such, it believed there would be less pressure on domestic supplies and that less gas would be needed to produce electricity due to improved output from other sources, especially wind.

Read more:
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Any unexpected loss of wind, gas or nuclear generation means the country would be at the mercy of available power in neighbouring countries through the so-called interconnector network.

There are five in operation, connecting the UK with France, The Netherlands, Belgium and Norway.

A sixth interconnector, Viking Link, is still under construction but is expected to join the UK with Denmark late this year.

Once operational, the two countries will be able to share enough electricity to power up to 1.4 million homes.

Over the course of a year, the UK tends to import more power than it exports through these arrangements.

This can add to bills depending on the power sources utilised, though the UK’s leading position in wind power can also work in its favour.

The fact remains, however, that energy bills remain around £1,000 per year higher than typical pre-pandemic levels.

A household paying by direct debit for gas and electricity will face an average annual charge of £1,923 from October to December, a fall of about £150 on the previous three months.

Experts warn that the loss of universal government support for bills will mean many households will be worse off this winter than last, particularly when industry forecasts suggest the average bill will be back above £2,000 when the next price cap adjustment is made for January-March.

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