Oleksandr Usyk is my favourite sportsman.

He is a prominent professional boxer from Ukraine, WBO world champion, Olympic Champion, Honored Master of Sports of Ukraine. He is the only boxer to hold all four cruiserweight titles.

Oleksandr Usyk was born on 17th January 1987 in Simferopol, Crimea. Since the young age, Usyk showed interest in active leisure and attended classes of folk dancing, football and judo. He played football until he was 15. He played association football and was trained at the SC Tavriya Simferopol specialized sports school of Olympic reserve. He took up boxing at 15.

He began his amateur boxing career in 2006 at European Championships, where he took the third place. In 2008 in Liverpool Usyk defeated all his opponents and won the gold medal. But he achieved his real success at the Olympic Games in 2012, London, when he beat three serious boxers from Russia, Bulgaria and Italy and won the Olympic gold medal.

In 2013 Oleksandr Usyk decided to start professional boxing career. He signed a contract with the Klitschko brothers’ promotion company “K2 Promotions”. In 2014 Oleksandr won his first WBO interim junior-cruiserweight title defeating Daniel Bruwer from South Africa. He defended his title four times to rise up the rang.

Summing up all professional Usyk’s fights he had 11 wins and no losses.

Interesting facts about Oleksandr Usyk

• His nickname is ‘the Cat’, on account of his swiftness, agility and slickness inside the ring.
• He has got three children: a daughter Yelizaveta and two sons Kirill and Mykhailo. Oleksandr has tattoos of their names on the shoulders. He likes to spend his free time with his family.
• He’s married to Yekaterina, who he has known since their school years.
• Oleksandr is a tall man, his height is 1.9 metres.
• He likes reading books, writing poetry and listening to different music. Rap is his favourite.
• He shares a birthday with his favorite boxer Muhammad Ali.
• Usyk is thought of as the heir to the Klitschkos’ throne.
• He has sponsorship with MTC (one of the biggest Ukrainian mobile companies) and was the brand face of Gillette Fusion Proglide.
• After the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, Usyk declared that he would never exchange his Ukrainian citizenship for a Russian one and that he considered Crimea a part of Ukraine. Now his family lives in Kyiv.
• Usyk has several tattoos on his arms and his back. On his right shoulder, you will find the national coat of arms of Ukraine – the Trident tattoo. Moreover, he tattooed further Ukrainian symbolic like Churches and monuments below the trident.