In the building of Moskovsky Komsomolets, where the brothers Vladimir and Vitaliy Klitschko were to meet with the press, photojournalists stared hard at the door. Wladimir Klitschko was without his brother and quickly jumped into the elevator.
“And we recently had a very tall athlete here,” an employee of the newspaper proudly told him. What is your height? 2.40?
“Well, what are you,” the boxer was embarrassed. - Only 198.
“And we had Katya Gamova,” his interlocutor perked up. - And she put an autograph on the wall above all. Only Alexei Savrasenko lost.
Klitschko slammed his eyes, not understanding who these Gamova and Savrasenko are. Will you have to fight with them? Who are their promoters? And why did such bruisers appear in the ring? However, the same Savrasenko may soon come in handy.
“I really want to meet with Nikolai Valuev,” said Vladimir Klitschko. - This is a very unconventional athlete. I'm afraid that I will encounter difficulties already at the preparation stage. You have to go to the basketball hall to choose a sparring partner.
If only he did not begin to look for such sparring here in Moscow. And without that there are not enough basketball players.
However, the battle with Valuev is still very, very far. There are a lot of intractable problems in professional boxing, and Nikolai has two promoters who themselves do not know what they want. Given that one of them is Don King, the probability of meeting these athletes is extremely small.
“We really need a unification battle,” said Klitschko. - Now I'm the first number. And I need a fight with a worthy opponent, one of the world champions. Let it be Briggs, Valuev or Maskaev if he wins on December 10th.
Of course, the Ukrainian was asked who he fears the most.
“The most serious rival is me,” Klitschko said his first and last banality. - Everything will depend only on me.
The representative of a very serious publication suddenly asked the athlete how he earned his first money. That is, even it became clear to women that it was pointless to talk about boxing with this man, since he “respects all rivals” and wants to “deal with them in a fair fight”.
“It's very good that you asked me this question,” Klitschko was suddenly worried. - I began to earn my first money at the age of 11. When I started painting borders and trees. And then I earned 5 rubles for the whole summer. What did you buy? Designers, sweets.
Isn't he running too far for five rubles?
However, Klitschko’s excitement was connected with another.
“Here we are talking about children,” his eyes moistened. - I want to tell you that my recent fight was dedicated to just children. Part of the funds from the tickets went to help the children from Namibia. We were there, watched these children die ...
Everyone flinched.
The first one came to herself was a girl who asked the boxer if he was going to star in a movie.
“If I were a director,” Klitschko looked at her intently. - That I would suggest you the main role. You have very beautiful eyes.
- When are you going to get married? - cried out in a timely manner.
“Probably next year,” the athlete sighed.
Alexey Shevchenko