Leaving it Late? Leo lands in New York
Last night Leo Santa Cruz arrived in New York ahead of his WBA featherweight title defence against Carl Frampton at the Barclays Centre.
While the Belfast man arrived in New York four weeks in advance, El Terremoto elected to complete his camp in Los Angeles before jetting across country to the Big Apple.
The decision to fly in on the week of the fight could have some slight effect on Santa Cruz’s performance, and while any effects would most likely be very minor, they could prove crucial in what is a near fifty-fifty match-up.
It is commonly agreed that flying from west to east (LA to New York) is more physically demanding than flying east to west (Dublin to New York), hence the saying “west is best, east is a beast.” This is due to it being more disruptive to a person’s body clock as they are jumping ahead in time zones.
Santa Cruz traversed three time zones during his three hour journey, therefore he left LA at around 2pm and arriving in New York at 8pm – however for his body clock it was only 5pm and one can assume that it took the three-weight World champ until the early hours to get asleep.
The slight adjustment to local time will take Santa Cruz about three days to make.
Perhaps more importantly, flying can have an impact on a person’s water retention, and the 28 year old will most likely have found himself a pound or two heavier when he landed on the East Coast. Again, relatively minor, but it could all add up over the next few days as the Mexican-American looks to boil down to championship weight.
