Britain's super-heavyweight boxer Joe Joyce has a fine arts degree but he displayed his brutal side with an emphatic first-round knock-out victory in his debut at the Rio Olympics on Saturday.
In front of the watching Floyd Mayweather, the softly spoken Joyce had Davilson Dos Santos of Cape Verde in trouble almost from the first bell, the referee stepping in for a count.
And when the 30-year-old Joyce had his opponent wasted for a second time the referee decided enough was enough to prevent him getting seriously hurt, Joyce winning by a technical knock-out.
"I heard the 10-second bam, bam, bam (to go in the round) and I wanted to take him out so I managed to do it before the bell went for the end of the round," he said of the decisive moment that he won the fight to surge into the quarterfinals on Tuesday.
Asked by AFP about the apparent clash between fine art and boxing, Joyce said: "They are two of my skills. I was very good at art and sport.
"It seems the same to me – they are both on canvas! It is just about practising your skills and improving."
Joyce did not appear to be nervous, but he admits that it was a long wait to start his Olympic assault – the boxing in Rio began a week ago – and he was getting impatient.
"Normally I don't really have nerves, but I was in my room and I was like, 'Woah! It's the Olympics!"
He said he was not aware Mayweather – the unbeaten former champion American – was in attendance until somebody told him.
"It's good to show him what I can do," said the affable Joyce.
