WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury welcomed a surprise guest on his morning run – a determined teenager who went to great lengths to meet his idol.
Presley Pennington, 14, rode 50 miles with his parents from Burnley to Morecambe in the hope of catching Fury in his first practice of the day.
The schoolboy even camped out overnight in a canopy above his parents’ motorhome, before coming across ‘The Gypsy King’ racing along the seafront at 6am.
Presley filmed their meeting and the footage has since been uploaded to social media.
In the video, the excited youngster can be seen running alongside Fury shouting, “Me and Tyson are on the run, right Tyson?”
The heavyweight champion then pushes the boy who wears a hat bearing his nickname.
“What’s strange is that the day before when we arrived in Morecambe I saw Tyson in his car near Sainsbury’s out of the blue and he shook my hand. I got a picture and he gave me a hat that he signed,” Presley said of his first encounter with Fury.
The Blessed Trinity RC College pupil decided he wanted to join Fury on one of his morning jogs when he realized the sports star is running in the same area as his family has a house of holidays.
“I saw on Instagram that he walks down the Morecambe seafront almost every day for his well-being. I said to my grandmother ‘I want to meet Tyson’. We have a caravan in Morecambe, so we decided to try to make that happen,” Presley added.
“They say don’t meet your heroes, but he has such a great personality. I have two books about him and the reason he inspires me is because he was struggling, he had serious mental health issues and he wanted to crash into a wall.
After recovering from a public battle with depression, Fury is world champion once again and is now set to fight former 2x unified heavyweight king Anthony Joshua.
Fury was expected to face Oleksandr Usyk in an undisputed clash after beating Joshua last month to defend three of the four major heavyweight titles, but the Ukrainian ruled himself out until 2023 due to a wound.
This prompted the 32-0-1 fighter to call out ‘AJ’ who agreed to fight him at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on December 3.
Since then, contracts have been exchanged but are yet to be signed according to Hall of Fame boxing promoter Frank Warren who has worked with Fury for the past few years.