His plan: to go to Cuba, where he hoped to receive additional boxing training.

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Hope says that training at Talon Boxing is very different to his former camp at the Calzaghe gym in Newbridge, where he used to work alongside the likes of Joe Calzaghe and Enzo Maccarinelli.

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The car began to wind its way through the narrow streets near the 1 World Trade Center construction, toward the Trinity Boxing Club, where Cotto would be training that afternoon.

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Jazz icon Miles Davis was a huge boxing fan and even did some training, according to John Szwed, a professor of music and director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia.

WSJ: Music Students Hit the Boxing Ring

He visits a Russian farm to look at the country's ambitions to be an agricultural superpower, checks out the Star City astronaut training center, meets with seven-foot boxing world champion-turned-movie star Nikolai Valuev and talks along the way with entrepreneurs and environmentalists working to make the city of Sochi home to green Olympics in 2014.

CNN: Eye on Russia: Opportunity and Influence

Members range from nine to 50 and the club has training facilities that meet the standard of the Amateur Boxing Association.

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Bell has been training with Barrington Patterson, who once fought current world heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, to improve his fitness.

BBC: Thursday's Ashes gossip column

Boxing manager and promoter Frank Maloney said he felt it was wrong for amateurs to be training "non-stop" in camps like professional boxers - and also insisted that Gavin's head coach must now be sacked.

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But if you linger long enough to see the entourages pass and hear the trash talk subside, boxing reveals itself to be a lonely sport men left unaccompanied, armed only with their training and their determination to push forward.

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