Heavyweight boxer Tyson Fury revealed that he lost his unborn son the day before he faced off against Oleksandr Usyk in the ring for the undisputed heavyweight title, back in May.
The British athlete revealed today that he was hit with a gut-wrenching personal event on the eve of the biggest fight of his career.
He spoke about the event, which was only confirmed when he got home to Morecambe.
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At the time, Paris, Fury's wife, was six months pregnant with their eighth child, a boy, but sadly suffered a miscarriage the day before he lost his WBC world heavyweight title to Ukrainian heavyweight Oleksandr Usyk in Saudi Arabia.
Touching on the subject for the first time, an emotional Fury revealed that he was not told the news before heading into the ring in his bid to become the division's first undisputed champion in almost a quarter of a century.
When he was asked about if he was planning on having any more children, the 6ft 9in boxer answered: “Never say never. I only have seven.
“The one that she was having, she lost that on the Friday of the fight, which was pretty s****y.
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“She was six months pregnant. It’s not like a small miscarriage at the beginning – you have to physically give birth to a dead child, on your own, while your husband is in a foreign country. To go through that on your own isn’t good.
“I could not be there for her in that moment. And that’s tough for me. I have been with the woman for longer than I wasn’t with her, so it’s hard that I couldn’t be there with her in that time," he admitted.
Fury went on: "When she said she couldn’t come over, I knew there was a problem.
"She usually comes out on fight week but she said she had high blood pressure."
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He further explained: "I knew she wasn’t coming over on the Friday and (Saudi boxing chief) Turki Alalshikh offered us a private jet to get around the high blood pressure and said he would bring the doctor with her.
"She said she couldn’t come and I asked her what was up and asked her to tell me but she wouldn’t. So I knew, I knew there was a problem. I said to my brother, ‘She’s lost that baby’. She never told me she had lost the baby, but I knew.
"When I got back I got the inevitable confirmation that it was gone but she kept it to herself."
He added: "But it’s not an excuse - hell no. I am a man of honour and I do what I have to do when I am in there. I don’t think about that sort of stuff when I am in the fight. Nothing outside the ring matters, there is no emotion; you think about all that stuff afterwards. Will we have any more kids? I don’t know if she’s back to normal from that. It was only a few months ago and it takes a lot of getting over."
Fury is set to fight Usyk in a rematch that will take place on 21 December in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in an attempt to recapture his title.
Topics: Tyson Fury, Boxing, Oleksandr Usyk, Mental Health, Sport
Joshua Nair