Leapai’s early hour sparring sessions

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IT's 1.45am and the Sheraton Essen, 20 minutes from downtown Dusseldorf, has closed up for the night. The kitchen is shut, the lights are off in the bar and the only sounds are the dull snores of a couple of journalists stretched out in the foyer, sleeping off the effects of a 21-hour flight from Australia.

Then, the lift doors open and out strides Alex Leapai followed by a collection of training staff, family members, sponsors and supporters. It's time to go to work.

Leapai, the former Brisbane truck driver who in five days will fight formidable Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko for the heavyweight boxing championship of the world, might be in Germany but his body clock is still set on Queensland time.

Wladimir Klitschko and his right hand, both of which Alex Leapai will need to overcome. Source: Getty Images

His trainer Noel Thornberry doesn't want his man climbing into the ring to face Klitschko at nearby Oberhausen on 11pm Saturday night and feeling like he should be sitting at the breakfast table eating toast and Vegemite, so he is reprogramming him gradually.

Last night Leapai began training at 2am. Tonight it will be 1.30am, then 1am, with another half-hour shaved off every night until he will feel like he's been throwing punches at elf uhr nacht, as the locals would say, his entire life.

Thornberry tried the same trick when Leapai fought hot favourite Denis Boystov in Bayern, Germany last November. 'Lionheart' won the fight, earning his shot at one of the biggest prizes in world sport, so they're sticking with it.

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It's all part of Thornberry's plan to leave nothing to chance as Leapai bids to become Australia's first-ever heavyweight champion and pull off one of the greatest upsets in the sport's history.

And if that means a gaggle of Aussie journalists, photographers and cameramen have to miss out on their beauty sleep, so be it.

There is no suitable gym for a full-on sparring session in the Sheraton, and Leapai finished his heavy work before leaving Queensland anyway, so Thornberry has requisitioned one of the hotel's conference rooms. Heavy-lidded journos help pull tables and chairs to the sides of the room between yawns as Thornberry puts Leapai through some stretches before taping his hands and helping him pull on gloves.

Trainer Noel Thornberry and Leapai will confront the biggest challenge of their respective careers. Source: Supplied

Earlier in the day Thornberry was telling anyone who'd listen what great shape his man was in, how he'd just had his first-ever proper preparation for a fight and how no heavyweight in the world had an overhead right like his.

They always say that, but in an ungodly hour in a conference room at the Sheraton Essen, he proved it.

Those who had seen Leapai as he fought in leagues clubs, RSLs and even a nightclub in the less salubrious part of Brisbane's Fortitude Valley on his unlikely road to Essen could not help but be stunned by his new-look streamline body shape, but it was his punching power that woke the room.

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As his right hands smashed into the pads held by Thornberry the sound, as one onlooker put it succinctly was, "like gunshots".

But of course there was never any question about Leapai's power. It was his defence, and patience that raised question marks.

"He'll never have classic defence," Thornberry said after the session ended around 3.30am. "But we're working on deflecting Klitschko's straight right, putting him off balance."

Among other things. Watching the two men at work in the early hours was to see a teacher and student in perfect synch. Thornberry is continuously studying Klitchko's fights, and never stops drilling into Leapai what he can expect, when, and how to counter it.

Leapai possesses fearsome power and his overhand right is considered his major weapon. Source: Getty Images

"He'll do this, Al; every time you throw that left he'll grab you here like this. You've got to do that 'pop' thing you do ... and the weave, do the weave … he'll try to hold you, so that opens up that little right every time … it doesn't have to be loaded … trust your instincts, Alex. If you want to throw the overhead, you throw it. Don't think about it, just throw it …"

The room empties and onlookers trudge to the lifts like miners ending a long shift underground, Noel and Alex stay put, talking, shadow-boxing. It's like the clock is ticking. There's so much to learn and not a moment to waste.

Who's got time to sleep?

Catch all the action from the big fight LIVE in HD Sunday, April 27 at 6am AEST

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