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Somewhere in a castle in Finland on Saturday night, five minutes removed from beating Mika Mielonen, Robert Helenius was posed a question. “Dillian Whyte is out; are you in?” Fighting Anthony Joshua in London on seven days’ notice was the proposition, and it was one that Helenius accepted with little hesitation. Four days on, he casually tells reporters in the English capital: “Nobody will remember a coward.” Few would have labelled Helenius as such, had he decided not to take this fight with Joshua in the wake of Whyte’s failed drug test, but the Finn himself would have lived with regret. That said, there was more to Helenius’s decision than just that. “Of course I think he’s vulnerable,” the 39-year-old says of Joshua, with whom he sparred in 2017. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I think I’d find easier jobs to do. I’m gonna take my chances and say now is the best time to fight him.” While Helenius fought just last Saturday, stopping Mielonen in the third round, Joshua enters the O2 Arena this week on the back of a points win over Jermaine Franklin. That victory came in the same venue, four months ago, and saw the Briton bounce back from two straight losses to Oleksandr Usyk. Helenius’s win against Mielonen also marked an upturn in form, as the “Nordic Nightmare” responded positively to a first-round loss to Deontay Wilder. That knockout last October left Wilder in tears and Helenius pondering retirement. “I didn’t think about boxing for about six months,” Helenius says. “I just did some bag work now and then, and mainly strength training. I was weighing a lot in the wintertime...” Then came Saturday’s bout with Mielonen at Savonlinna’s opera venue, and the Anthony Joshua call. Helenius’s manager Markus Sundman says a deal was struck within 24 hours, with much of the negotiating done from a zoo in Finland. Sundman in fact got the call on Saturday morning but did not wish to bother Helenius until after the heavyweight had fought that evening. Did they accept the first offer they got? “No comment,” Helenius and Sundman laugh, though the boxer admits this is not the biggest payday of his career, with funds around this weekend’s event having been hit by Whyte’s exit. Another intriguing factor is the fighters’ past as sparring partners, when “AJ” prepared for his clash with Wladimir Klitschko in 2017. How did Helenius rate Joshua, now 33, at the time? “Hard hitter, good technicals, a little bit robotic. I felt pretty confident.” Helenius also acknowledges that Joshua has looked somewhat hesitant in his last three fights, saying: “I’ve seen that change, but he didn’t get knocked out against Usyk or in his last fight, he showed he’s still got it. You have to overcome the gun-shyness after you get knocked out. I’ve been knocked out three times, and I think the first time was the bad one; I was probably depressed for a few months after that. “But I think his last fight, he made a good fight. I have to be awake and nimble, explosive. I hope he’s coming for me [from the first bell]. I am looking forward to this. I’m here to win.” Helenius is serious. Ahead of his fight last week, the Finn had planned a family holiday to Lapland – a trip that is now on hold. “They understand, they’ve been all their life with me,” Helenius says of his children, who are 15, 13 and 10 years old and prefer football to boxing. And what did his wife think? “I can’t ask permission from home to do what I do,” Helenius says. “They either accept it or they don’t. Sometimes, of course, [I think about the dangers of boxing]; I would be stupid not to. And, of course, I’ve been thinking about having a normal life after boxing and not having any brain damage, but boxing is always boxing. And I love it, I love the adrenalin. The [concerns] don’t outweigh the feeling of getting a really good win.” Such a win would also make Helenius the sportsperson of the year in Finland, he and Sundman believe. “When this match got announced, it was in every newspaper and on TV – all the time for maybe 24 hours,” Helenius says. This is a huge occasion – for Joshua, for Helenius, and for Finland. Saturday’s card is an event that Helenius saved after Whyte’s “adverse finding”, and as the Finn prepares for his showdown with AJ, he warns: “My doping is that I have a really high level of Viking blood in me...” Watch Joshua vs Helenius live on Dazn by clicking here. We may earn commission from some of the links in this article, but we never allow this to influence our content. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent. Read More It’s time to stop taking Anthony Joshua for granted Joshua vs Helenius live stream: How to watch fight online and on TV this weekend ‘We need to get it at the root’: Anthony Joshua and Robert Helenius on boxing’s doping ‘problem’ Anthony Joshua reveals which of his three defeats hurt the most Derek Chisora and Robert Helenius call for severe punishments for doping cheats Anthony Joshua and Robert Helenius go in-depth on boxing’s doping ‘problem’

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It was arguably the mass shift to remote working sparked by coronavirus lockdowns which saw Zoom rapidly become a household name – but now, three years later, even the tech giant itself is extolling the benefits of a physical office. The videoconferencing firm has now told employees who live within 50 miles of an office that they should commute in at least two days each week, in a plan due to come into force over the course of the next two months. The move to what Zoom calls a “structured hybrid approach” will impact thousands of employees at 12 offices across the world, including in the UK. A spokesperson said: “We believe that a structured hybrid approach – meaning employees that live near an office need to be onsite two days a week to interact with their teams – is most effective for Zoom. “As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers. “We’ll continue to leverage the entire Zoom platform to keep our employees and dispersed teams connected and working efficiently. Additionally, we will continue to hire the best talent, regardless of location.” The company was reported to have nearly 8,500 employees at the end of 2022, but like several other big tech companies was forced to let go 15 per cent of its staff in February, amounting to some 1,300 employees, as chief executive Eric Yuan took a 98 per cent pay cut. Zoom went from having 10 million daily meeting participants in 2019– a measure which fails to account for whether one person attends multiple meetings – to 300 million the following year, as social and working lives were pushed further online by health restrictions to curb the spread of Covid-19. But the tech firm has taken a hit amid a push by many firms to get employees back into offices, with its share price falling from a high of $559 in October 2020 to $68, lower than they were prior to the pandemic. Mr Yuan faced a series of questions from employees who expressed frustration about the time and money they’d waste while commuting, during a tense meeting about the new hybrid policy last week, one employee who was present told the New York Times. The company currently employs more than 200 people at its UK office, and has this week opened a new office space in central London, which is being billed as “laying down the foundations for Zoom as a successful hybrid business”, according to The Times. Read More Young people are sick of working hard for no money – and are using social media to vent The pandemic missing: The kids who didn’t go back to school Amazon, Microsoft and Google investigated by Ofcom over ‘competition concerns’ Breaking the office bias: smashing the stereotypes holding women back

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“Now it’s time to cross over to our F1 Juniors,” said Sky’s lead presenter Simon Lazenby, in a feel which became familiar throughout the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend. Often the broadcaster striving for new avenues, never afraid of the status quo, Sky Sports took their television trials to a different avenue this weekend with the first-ever Formula 1 broadcast for children. An admirable experiment, it gave three teenagers a few days to savour as they started their summer holidays in Budapest alongside broadcasters Radzi Chinyanganya and Harry Benjamin. For Braydon, Scarlett and Zak – the latter a go-karter at junior level, the former duo presenters on Sky’s BAFTA-winning kids show FYI – it presented opportunities of a lifetime with interviews, quizzes and predictions with the best drivers and pundits in the paddock. And it provided some indisputably heartwarming moments. Like the segment where Zak met Lewis Hamilton and spoke to his hero about how inspiring the Mercedes star has been to black kids around the world, before then sitting in his Mercedes car. Or Scarlett and Braydon quizzing the “terrible trio” of George Russell, Lando Norris and Alex Albon about what ice cream they’d describe themselves as. “Vanilla”, Norris quipped, pointing at Russell. There’s something about the involvement of adolescents in a press environment which can bring some much-needed lightheartedness to what can sometimes be a sterile process for all involved. For example, who can forget the young boy, in awe of his sporting icon, who asked Roger Federer at the US Open in 2017: “Switzerland is really cool, right? There isn’t too much livestock. So why do they call you the GOAT [greatest of all time]?” Yet, away from one-on-ones with drivers, the core aspect to the alternative broadcast was the informal race coverage, live on free-to-air Sky Showcase, which presented an F1 race in an entirely different format. There were bright, 3D-augmented graphics throughout, with a colour-coordinated leaderboard which, frankly, seemed clearer than the usual feed at times. Explainers popped up at various points, defining key F1-focused terms for younger viewers. The use of avatars for each driver was a cute touch, though obviously best kept for this experiment. Overall, it provided something completely unique and distinctive for a 70-lap race which provided a common routine in the obligatory Max Verstappen victory. Sure, nobody was asking for an F1-kids broadcast. And inevitably, naysayers online will have been quick to roll their eyes at the initiative. It was notable that both Sky F1 and Benjamin turned off replies to their tweets involving F1 Juniors over the weekend. Less an indication of the general reaction to the initiative and more a sign of the times – and the highly-charged, often-abusive nature of social media. But that is not the point. F1 has for a while been a step ahead of other sports in the intuitiveness and creativity of its product, to the stage now where it is in the midst of a period of unprecedented worldwide popularity. The most obvious is the fly-on-the-wall nature of Drive to Survive on Netflix, a format only now being followed by the professional tennis and golf tours in search of extra eyeballs. It is a fine balancing act, though. During practice and the qualifying show, there were regular interspersions on the main feed to the Juniors, a process which may well have irritated petrolheads and fans of a sterner generation. While Sky like to push boundaries, their executives will be all too aware of trying to avoid alienating their core viewership. The one-off nature of F1 Juniors, at least this season, means this is unlikely to materialise. And there were moments of awkwardness. Like cutting to Christian Horner on the pit wall, seemingly in a baffled daze, who bluntly said: “Can we come back and do this in another 10 laps or so?” Like a selfie in the commentary booth with Danica Patrick, who had earlier stated the nature of sport “is masculine and aggressive” as she spoke about the lack of female racing drivers. There were obviously a few mistakes here and there – and it wasn’t completely crisp and clear-cut. But then it wasn’t meant to be. And, frankly, nor is David Croft and Martin Brundle’s expert commentary always error-free. In a sport as technical and fast-paced as F1, perfection is near-on impossible. Of course, unless you’re Verstappen at the moment. But the underlying takeaway is this: as a child, all you want to be is treated as a grown-up. The best way of learning about the intricacies of a sport like Formula 1 is to immerse yourself in the usual feed on a regular basis, creating a curiosity gap to discover more. As a one-off, F1 Juniors was worthwhile and undoubtedly a commendable initiative. For intrigued parents, showing their children an F1 race for the first time, who knows how many may have flicked on the coverage? Who knows how many might now flick on an F1 race in the future on a Sunday afternoon? Something different is not to be something dismissed. Article originally published on 24 July 2023 Read More Lewis Hamilton makes damning statement about his level after Hungarian GP Daniel Ricciardo is back - and this time he wants to go out on top F1 Singapore Grand Prix LIVE: Qualifying updates and times at Marina Bay FIA take action against Helmut Marko after comments about Sergio Perez Zhou Guanyu interview: ‘There is a lot of pressure – only winners stay in F1’

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