Laureate Vitali Klitschko, former world heavyweight boxing champion, joined the Ukrainian army and is participating in the defense of Kiev, the city of which he is mayor, which is currently under siege by the Russian army.
“I’ve fought George Foreman and Lennox Lewis, and Vitali is the best. He hits harder,” said Shannon Briggs after losing, by far, the final of the World Heavyweight Championship. All of them, for those who do not frequent the ring, are names of great former international boxers. But if there is a peculiar case among them, it is that of whom Briggs refers to as “the best”, and whom the sports world referred to as the “Iron Fist”. This is Vitali Klitschko, a former professional heavyweight boxer and current mayor of Kiev. That October 16, 2010, when Klitschko emerged as the winner, he was surrounded by about 14,500 boxing fans, as well as more than 13 million viewers following him through Ukrainian television. The former boxer has only five defeats in his sports record, a series of successes that are not only historic, but have also been recognized. It was in 2016 when the World Boxing Council (WBC) designated Vitali Klitschko as “Eternal World Heavyweight Champion”, a title that he retains today. He was born in 1971 in Kyrgyzstan, one of the then constituent republics of the Soviet Union. In 1985, together with his parents, his grandmother and his inseparable brother Wladimir, the politician moved to Kiev, a short distance from the military base of the international airport. It was then that he began to study karate, and when he would begin his life adventure. As in 1986, while swimming in the Dnieper River with his friends, Vasili did not expect that those waters were already contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster, nor would he imagine that he would end up being mayor of the city that saw him grow up. Along with his younger brother, Vitali is a figure much loved by the Ukrainian citizenry, above all for the achievements he achieved in the ring. In the professional category, the politician achieved 45 victories against the greats Chris Byrd or Lewis, as well as being the first professional boxing world champion to hold a doctorate degree. He graduated in 2000 in Sports Science from the National University of Physical Education and Sport, as well as in 2004 received the highest title of Hero of Ukraine. Achievements, recognitions, awards and admiration that are now added to his figure as mayor of Kiev. On March 26, 2006, he presented his first candidacy for mayor, assuring that, although he did not win the elections, “I also lost my first boxing match when I was 14 years old, I am not going to give up.” And so he has done. In May 2008 he was elected mayor and re-elected in 2014 and 2015, winning 66.5% of the vote in this last round, well ahead of his nationalist rival Boryslav Bereza. Now, Klitschko faces what is perhaps his toughest ring: that of the Kiev mayor’s office in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Together with his brother Wladimir, who was also a boxing champion, the politician has not hesitated to announce that he will take up arms: “This is already a bloody war. I have no choice. I have to do it, I will fight, ”he said in an interview with ITV. In this way, the Klitschkos have exchanged the gloves for the rifles, and are already immersed in a military struggle against the Russian army: “We must remain united against Russian aggression. Do not allow what is happening in Ukraine, in Europe and in the world. United we are strong, we support Ukraine”, the heavyweights have assured. The international media assure that the Russian army forces will try to take the Ukrainian capital by force, an operation that is already underway.
