James DeGale fighting on two fronts as he prepares for showdown with Badou Jack in New York

Start Time | Badou Jack vs James DeGale is due to start Sunday at 3am GMT
Bryn Lennon/Getty Images
Declan Taylor14 January 2017

James DeGale has opened up about his mental health problems ahead of his super-middleweight unification clash against Badou Jack here in New York.

The Harlesden man puts his IBF belt on the line against WBC champion Jack at the Barclays Center, Brooklyn, bringing an end to weeks of both physical and psychological duress.

The issue of mental health in boxing has been brought into sharp focus over the past 12 months, with Tyson Fury taking a break from the sport because of depression while Ricky Hatton has revealed that retirement left him feeling suicidal.

DeGale believes that such issues are part and parcel of fighting for a living. “I’m bipolar, 100 per cent,” he told Standard Sport. “There’s definitely something going on up there. They tried to put me on Ritalin when I was a kid.

“It’s worse during camp, when I’ve got a fight coming up. Afterwards I get back to something like normal. It’s my way of dealing with what I’m about to do.”

It is not much before midnight and DeGale has just finished his training session for the day. Unlike many other boxers, the 30-year-old cannot handle a huge entourage so only a small circle of family and friends are allowed around him this close to a fight.

“I don’t want too much talking,” he adds. “I want people to leave me alone.

“If you want to be round me, shut your mouth, sit down and watch a bit of telly. I lock myself away. I lock all my friends off.

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“I need quiet. Too much talking, too much chaos, I can’t handle it. People think I’m flashy or cocky but when I’m in the zone I’m the opposite.”

But, he says, with quiet comes the usual fight with himself which only stops when he is in the boxing ring. And the usual feelings have been amplified given how high the stakes are against Las Vegas-based Swede Jack, who held off the challenge of DeGale’s bitter rival George Groves to retain that WBC belt in September 2015.

“I try to explain it to my mum and my friends why I’m moody,” says DeGale, who rose to prominence after winning a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

“They don’t know the half of it.They see me get in there, fight, win, hold my belt in the air but that’s nothing really.

“The hard work and preparation that I do is unseen and most of that goes on in the head. I keep a lot of s**t in.

“You look at me and you think, ‘he’s confident, he’s got this one covered’ but I’m only human — doubts do creep in.

“You play mind games with yourself, you start thinking ‘am I even fit?’... ‘hang on, am I even any good?’ You start thinking mad s**t.

“But I’ve done everything to prove it to myself: This time I’ve got the answers to those questions.”

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