From the ring, where he won Olympic gold and then the world heavyweight title as a professional, driving a Leopard 2 tank. It is the story of Wladimir Klitschko, former boxing champion and brother of Vitaly, current mayor of Kiev and also a former heavyweight world champion.
He ended up at the front to fight for the freedom of his country, Ukraine, after its invasion by Russia.
So now a 53-second video that the youngest of the Klitschko brothers posted on Twitter is going viral in which he is seen driving one of the four Leopard 2 tanks that the German Defense Ministry has supplied to Ukrainian troops and which go to add to the 14 already given in recent months.
In the video, Wladimir thanks Germany for giving him this "cat, which I never thought I'd drive a year ago. A year of war has passed in Ukraine, a year of tremendous suffering - says the former champion - but also a period in which our willpower has strengthened, and it is as powerful as this tank. Thanks to the free world for what it has done for the Ukrainians - he concludes -. Long live Ukraine, long live our heroes".
Last week, the 1996 Atlanta super heavyweight Olympic gold medalist had very harsh words against the IOC and its president Thomas Bach regarding the possibility that athletes from Russia and Belarus could participate as 'neutrals' in the Paris 2024 Games. Klitschko had accused Bach of "no longer representing the Olympic values but those of the aggressor" warning that admitting Russians and Belarusians to the next Olympics "would be the destruction of the principles which animate the Games".
