It becomes more of a fight, less of a formality.Funny game, fisticuffs. Klitschko will be aware of the fate that befell his younger and supposedly better brother Wladimir, who was touted to be the real successor to Lewis before he was caught cold by the unranked South African Corrie Sanders.With Wladimir at least temporarily out of the picture, step forward Klitschko the elder, the 31-year-old son of a former Soviet Air Force colonel, who may not be as intellectually accomplished as his brother, who holds a doctorate, but has a boxing brain that is at least his equal.Like Wladimir, he is university educated and multilingual, fluently speaking the only language that Herbie Hide understands – a whack on the whiskers (Audley Harrison, please note). Klitschko silenced the noisy Norwich nuisance, stiffing him in two rounds and taking Hide’s World Boxing Organisation title four years ago.Another Briton, Julius Francis, figures in Klitschko’s hit list of 31 stoppage wins. Could Lewis become the third in a hat-trick of British victims? Klitschko certainly has the ambition, as well as the artillery, but surely Lewis would not have taken this contest at such short notice had he been seriously concerned about the outcome.Lewis is also supposedly around £5 million poorer than he would have been had the Klitschko fight taken place as scheduled next October. His TV backers, HBO, say they have insufficient time to market it for pay TV in the United States, though it will be screened here on Sky, and the upgrading of the occasion will have more fingers on the Box Office button.Klitschko, who turned professional after the 1996 Olympics, where his brother was the super-heavyweight champion, was relieved of the WBO title he took from Hide after two defences when he retired at the end of the 10th round against Chris Byrd with a shoulder injury. It was his only defeat in 33 bouts.He may be the world’s tallest boxer, and men of his physical stature are usually freaks But he is more than a boxing beanpole.

What he lacks in lateral movement he makes up for by working behind the jab. He is also equipped to smother Lewis’s best shots and test his stamina. At his best, he could make Lewis look bad; at his very best, he could make him feel foolish. But if Lewis is at his best, as he was when he made mincemeat of Mike Tyson a year ago, it should be a further notch on the Lewis belt that secures his place in history.A lack of consistency in his performances and the occasional dose of complacency have spasmodically blighted Lewis’s 43-fight, 14-year career. While he has a technique that brackets him with the all-time greats, he sometimes can be a bit of a slouch.Of late, Klitschko has been taking his time to overcome mediocre opposition, labouring to a points win over Timo Hoffman in Germany, stopp-ing Vaughn Bean in 11 and Larry Donald in 12. His best hope would seem to be to catch Lewis on an off-night.

A tall order? Probably not, though Lewis should remember Rocky.. Have horse, will travel are the watchwords at Royal Ascot this year. The fixture has long been a national treasure, but this year the meeting takes a real step towards fulfilling the modern dream of those in charge: to make it a truly international festival. Some intensive global networking, though, by the Ascot team, led by the astute and charming ex-army type Douglas Erskine-Crum, and a boost to prize values to some £3.8m, has resulted in an unprecedented nine raiders more exotic than the usual travellers from mainland Europe and Ireland.They have come from the States, Dubai, South Africa and Hong Kong. But the longest road has been from Australia, with the most ambitious target at the end.

Choisir, the flying machine from New South Wales, is scheduled to run in both the feature sprints, the King’s Stand Stakes on Tuesday and the Golden Jubilee Stakes on Saturday, one of six Group One contests during the week.The highest achiever in Europe from down under has been the New Zealander Balmerino, who won at Goodwood in September 1977 after only a month under John Dunlop’s care, and went on to beat all bar Alleged in the Arc.He was the prototype globetrotter; his visits to six countries that year would hardly raise an eyebrow now. But, unlike players in virtually every other sport that Britain gave to the world, no Australian-trained horse has ever scored in these parts.Choisir, the pride of Paul Perry’s barn at Newcastle, on the coast 100 miles north of Sydney, has been boarding in Newmarket for three weeks now, accompanied by trainer’s son and assistant Shannon and work rider Lyle Weaver. He is the best sprinter in his native land, and looks the part; massively built, bright gold, with two white diamonds on his expressive face, one between his eyes and one on his nose. He is also, perhaps unusually for a high-powered speedball, a sleepy joe behind the scenes, without which trait he would not be here.”We were supposed to be going to Singapore last month for the big sprint,” said Perry Snr, who flew in five days ago, “but the races were cancelled because of Sars.