Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

In the first of a series of blogs, Ben Dirs outlined how and why he set upon the path to fitness. In the second, he describes his early struggles with his new regime.

The most baffling thing about my quest for fitness so far has been the bafflement of others. My friends and colleagues do not need to say anything, their faces say it all: "But why?" And then it hit me, halfway through a particularly brutal stint on the rowing machine: it is all a matter of identity.

Take away the booze and fags and who am I? They have been my props for nigh-on 20 years, since the night we pilfered a six-pack of out-of-date lager from my dad's garage, a handful of cigarettes from my mum's handbag and headed for the woods. Just about every friend I have made since, every woman I have been out with, this has been a major part of the deal, this is how I have been defined: he comes with fags and booze.

But to think in such a way is delusional, egotistical and more than a little bit sad. Surely it is possible the Dirs down the pub with a lager in one hand and a gasper in the other is not the best Dirs there could be? And maybe it is not too late to define myself in other, less self-destructive, ways? To borrow from , getting in some kind of nick is not necessarily the same as becoming a narcissistic sports pimp.

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As more than one wag pointed out following : had worse cuts shaving.

McCloskey's promoter called the decision to stop the fight following an accidental clash of heads in the sixth round "the most staggering decision I've ever seen at any ring at any time anywhere in the world". And while he is surely guilty of hyperbole, boxing, once again, failed to win many friends at the MEN Arena.

The shame was not so much that the Dungiven man had been robbed - Khan, who defended his WBA light-welterweight crown for a fourth time, had won every round. The shame was that 18,000 fans, an estimated 6,000 of them over from Ireland, had their night cut short on the whim of a queasy referee. This was meant to be world championship boxing, not a boxercise class.

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If Amir Khan last December a boy and left it a man, then Britain's WBA light-welterweight champion is fast discovering being a fully-fledged grown-up in the ruthless world of boxing has plenty of downsides.

The 24-year-old from Bolton is set to defend his crown for a fourth time in Manchester on Saturday - but not on Sky as planned. Irked by , Sky decided the bill was not worthy of pay-per-view and switched it to one of its regular channels. Camp Khan, stung by a reported Β£1m pay cut, jumped ship to fringe cable outfit .

While the actions of Khan and are understandable - they cannot be blamed for accepting a higher bid from a rival channel in the hope of breaking even, although some reports suggest Khan will get next to nothing - one has to wonder whether they have all fallen victim to short-termism, perhaps the sport's most debilitating disease.

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At university, a girlfriend once told me I had the body of an out-of-shape . Relationship and physique-wise, things went rapidly downhill from there. A couple of years later, while lounging by the pool in Tenerife, a girl I was attempting to woo told me I reminded her of a darts player. "Oh yeh, which one?" I enquired. "No-one in particular," she replied, "you just remind me of a darts player."

Sad to reflect my were over almost half a lifetime ago, figuratively and literally, and that the cruel barbs of females were not the , lettuce-conditioning shocks you might have expected.

That I finally decided to take action was partly down to my Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ colleague Tom Fordyce, who told me of a man who works wonders with the minds and bodies of England's elite rugby players - and many more of Britain's top athletes besides.

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A couple of years back, an American journalist coined the term , meant as an ever-so-clever dig at what he saw as an under-achieving, gravy-train riding crop of British golfers. "Thanks for the cameo, thanks for the cheque," he wrote after watching Donald secure a top-five finish in , "now back to the States for more of the same."

What, I wondered, did Donald have to say about that journalist now? "I don't think he writes about golf any more," the phlegmatic Englishman replied. "He got out of the job, because he wasn't doing a great one..."

Since those ill-chosen words made it to print, there have been seven different British winners on the US PGA Tour. One of them Donald. Oh, and . Again, one of them Donald, currently at number four.

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