And please don't make me shoot any other person.'īut then Kyiv survived. 'Every day I was there, I was praying and asking: 'Please, God, don't let anybody try to kill me. 'In the first month of the war I lost 10 pounds,' Usyk told The Guardian's Donald McCrae. At the time, most military and political analysts - who apparently have nothing on sportswriters - considered the fall of Kyiv to be a foregone conclusion. Usyk has three children (all now safe in Europe, including the daughter who turned 12 the day the bombing began) - enough to earn him an exemption from military service. For all the political fervor, it was a decision to, at the least, embrace great risk. There were tens of millions on the line for the Joshua rematch, but he hastily returned home, crossing the border though Poland and joining his local militia.

Usyk was in London being body scanned for a video game when the Russians invaded. Ukraine's Oleksandr Usyk defends his three heavyweight titles against Anthony Joshua on Saturday. And yet it's a metaphor that many Ukrainians seem eager to invoke. Finally, here's a fight that should defy description as a war. Still, to say as much almost demeans the cause itself. So, yeah, you can say that Usyk wants it real bad. Holding his breath for four minutes and 40 seconds, a personal best that also breaks the record of his friend and stablemate, Vasiliy Lomachenko, who held his breath for a mere 4:20 in preparation for one of his two Olympic golds.ĭid I mention there's a war? And that Usyk - of Kyiv by way of Crimea - has become a proxy for the hopes of his fellow Ukrainians? Riding a bike 100 kilometers (62.1 miles) in 110-degree heat, a desert trek outside Dubai, where he did most of his training. Swimming 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in a five-hour training session. But in preparation for this fight he's done things even he's never done before. He's the former undisputed cruiserweight champion, an Olympic gold medalist and the last man to beat the much-feared Artur Beterbiev. The rebuilding of Anthony Joshua: How a new trainer and newfound motivation have the former champ ready to regain his crown.And with that in mind, there's actually a pretty accurate way to gauge just how badly Oleksandr Usyk wants to retain the three heavyweight belts he won from Anthony Joshua in their rematch Saturday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Still, the vacuous question causes the honest athlete to ask a real one:ĭid I really kill myself training for this?ĭesire is commensurate with motivation and revealed in training. Nor does it rise with a soundtrack meant to sell sneakers or sports drinks. The athlete usually understands his or her role in this exchange: To make it pass as quickly and mercifully as possible, providing for a typically glazed response like This means the world to me or I've been dreaming of this since I was a kid.ĭesire can't be calibrated with words. Truth is, that's an empty question that elicits mostly vacant responses. Athletes are often asked - indeed, they ask themselves - 'How bad do you want it?'

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