Hours after achieving what once seemed impossible—a victory over Tyson Fury that followed back-to-back wins over Anthony Joshua, establishing Oleksandr Usyk as the undisputed heavyweight champion—Usyk’s emotions overwhelmed him. “I miss my father,” Usyk said, choking up in a roomful of reporters.
Oleksandr Usyk Sr. died in 2012, days after his son won gold at the London Olympics. Usyk had no bigger supporter than his dad, a military man who took up farming when the family moved from Simferopol, a city on the Crimean Peninsula, into the Ukrainian countryside. It was Senior who taught Oleksandr how to fight, who steered him to the right trainers, who told anyone that would listen that his son, the skinny kid with a gap tooth, was destined for greatness. “I have absolutely no idea where his true belief in me came from,” says Usyk. Days before Oleksandr was scheduled to return home from London, Senior passed. When the son arrived, his father was already in his coffin. Oleksandr slipped the medal into his hand and walked away.
