ROMNY, Ukraine (AP) — Maksym Halinichev received silver on the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires in a match described on the time as “two of the best young fighters going for glory.” He thought-about the bout a loss – it wasn’t gold, in any case – however it gave him a map for the longer term.
So Halinichev made plans: He would defeat that boxer the subsequent time round. He would educate his daughter the fundamentals of his sport so she might defend herself. And he would win a medal for Ukraine on the Paris Olympics.
Halinchev outlined these ambitions as an athlete in an interview for the Ukraine Boxing Federation web site in December 2021, as Russian troops have been already massing at Ukraine’s borders.
Amilcar Orfali by way of Getty Pictures
Requested if he was afraid earlier than a struggle, he described his considering.
“Fear can influence people in various ways. Some people are paralyzed by it. Some react by becoming more liberated,” he mentioned then. “If you can control yourself and your body and if you can set yourself the right way, then the fear will retreat.”
He’ll not get to show that philosophy within the Olympic ring in Paris.
Halinichev signed up as a soldier and was killed on the entrance in March 2023 at age 22, certainly one of greater than 400 athletes killed because the outbreak of the battle. His physique has but to be recovered.
As certainly one of Ukraine’s most promising boxing prospects, Halinichev might have been shielded from the battle. Ukraine has despatched lots of its Olympic hopefuls to coach overseas forward of the Summer time Video games. However not everybody desires to be saved. Some select to defend their nation’s honor on the battlefield as a substitute of the sports activities enviornment.
Halinichev’s perspective towards worry remained intact after the full-scale Russian invasion, however his priorities modified. It occurred throughout a drive in April 2022 from his house area of Sumy to Kyiv, the place he had deliberate to coach for the subsequent European championship. Russia had simply retreated from the area, and all alongside the freeway, he noticed cities and villages ripped aside by Russian troops throughout their transient occupation, mentioned his coach Bohdan Dmytrenko.
Amilcar Orfali by way of Getty Pictures
“I have a little child. I don’t want her to live in occupation among the aggressor, among the Russians,” Halinichev instructed one other of his coaches, Volodymyr Vinnikov.
“I said, Maksym, please listen to me, you are still a representative of Ukrainian boxing, you also defend the honor of Ukraine. The flag, the anthem — it’s also very important,” Vinnikov recounted. “You won’t convince me. I’ve made this decision. I will learn to shoot,” Halinichev instructed him.
Boxing was nonetheless necessary to him, however he wished extra, mentioned his life companion, Polina Ihrak. Sumy, a border area, was nonetheless below assault regardless of the Russian withdrawal. Kherson, the place he educated, was below Russian occupation and stories of the struggling of Ukrainians there have been trickling again.
“He couldn’t understand how his friends, coaches who were in Kherson, were left without the ability to live, let alone train, and he would go somewhere in Europe,” Ihrak mentioned. “He couldn’t let himself do it. It mattered to him.”
In Could 2022, at 21 years outdated, Halinichev joined the airborne assault troops, in keeping with Ukraine’s Boxing Federation. He was wounded earlier than the yr ended close to Bakhmut, with an harm to his foot and shrapnel embedded so deeply in his leg that medical doctors couldn’t take away it.
Whereas recovering, Halinichev frolicked together with his coach however prevented discussing what he noticed within the battle. Everybody hoped he would give up the military, however Halinichev returned to the battlefield together with his wounds unhealed.
“He believed he had to return to his brothers in arms because he was needed,” mentioned Ihrak, the mom of their daughter, Vasilisa.
Halinichev and Ihrak final spoke by video name on March 9, 2023. Days with out contact turned weeks. She tried calling Halinichev and his commander. Neither answered.
She took to scrolling by Russian Telegram channels, searching for his face amongst battlefield pictures of the useless and injured. One picture stood out, of a physique within the forest.
“His mom recognized him immediately, but I didn’t because I guess I refused to acknowledge it,” Ihrak mentioned. He was killed on March 10, 2023, in Luhansk, a area now nearly totally below Russian management.
At a latest commemoration for her father within the gymnasium the place he used to coach, the 4-year-old Vasilisa bounced joyfully across the boxing ring, sporting outsized gloves that dwarfed her small arms.
It won’t be her father who teaches her the way to struggle, however Ihrak couldn’t think about Halinichev would do something otherwise.
“People go there (to the front) not to regret but to change something,” Ihrak mentioned. “He went back without any doubt.”
Amongst others who died combating for Ukraine: pistol shooters Ivan Bidnyak, who received silver on the European Championships, and Yehor Kihitov, a member of Ukraine’s nationwide workforce; Stanislav Hulenkov, a 22-year-old judoka whose physique was recognized 10 months after he was killed; and weightlifter Oleksandr Pielieshenko, who represented Ukraine on the Rio Olympics in 2016. A Russian missile strike on Dnipro killed acrobatics coach Anastasia Ihnatenko, her husband and their 18-month-old son.
Vinnikov, who coached Halinichev in 2017, has little doubt that the younger man can be representing his nation on the Paris Video games that open July 26 had the invasion not derailed his plans. “He would have won a medal for his country,” the coach mentioned emphatically.
He had large potential: gold medal on the 2017 European Youth Championships, silver medal on the 2018 Youth Olympic Video games, silver medal on the 2021 European Beneath-22 Championships.
In his empty house within the city of Shostka, his mother and father have stuffed a room with proof of what he’d already achieved: trophies and medals from 2010 to 2021, neatly organized on a shelf.
His {photograph} stands within the nook together with a candle, his childhood footage, a non secular icon and flowers. His boxing gloves relaxation close by.
However Halinichev’s mother and father don’t dwell there anymore. Because the battle, they’ve remade their lives within the Czech Republic. Ihrak is considering a transfer to Germany.
Dmytrenko, his coach, retains his pictures of Halinichev neatly organized in folders and nonetheless has the archive of their messages to one another. He recalled a second simply earlier than the battle the place he was praising Halinichev’s achievements.
Halinichev merely replied: “Everything is still ahead.”
Leicester reported from Paris.
