Rags-to-riches Ngannou targets Joshua heavyweight shock

British boxer Anthony Joshua (L) and Cameroonian-French boxer Francis Ngannou (R) gesture after a press conference ahead of their boxing fight at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh on March 6, 2024. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine / AFP)

Francis Ngannou once toiled in a sand mine, scavenged for food to avoid starvation and slept rough in a car park, so facing former two-time world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on Friday is just another stop on his epic rags-to-riches journey.

“I’ve had a lot of experience in life,” the softly-spoken Cameroon-born fighter says with characteristic understatement.

“I’ve built my fighting spirit as high as anyone else.”

Ngannou has crammed a lot into his 37 years.

The child of a single mother, he had to walk six miles to school and from the age of 10 he shovelled sand from open quarries, his meagre income helping to buy food and books.

“It was work meant for adults, but we didn’t have any options,” said Ngannou of his back-breaking labours which paid less then $2 a day.

“Sometimes I didn’t have a pen or a notebook. Sometimes no shoes, my uniform was torn. I looked crappy.

“I didn’t like my life, I felt like I missed my childhood.”

In 2012, at the age of 26 and fired by dreams of becoming a professional boxer, Ngannou, now boasting a towering physique carved from his brutal work in the sand pits, made a break for Europe and a better life.

Crammed with others into the back of a pick-up truck, he crossed the unforgiving Sahara, travelled through Nigeria, Niger and Algeria before reaching Morocco.

Then, after half a dozen failed attempts, he finally made it over the Mediterranean to Spain where he was promptly jailed for two months for making an illegal crossing.

Completing a trip of around 5,000km, he took a