WORLD CHAMPIONS KLITSCHKO BROTHERS FATHER PASSES AWAY
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 14 Jul 2011
The father of world heavyweight boxing champions, WBO and IBF king Wladimir Klitschko and WBC champion Vitali Klitschko has passed away in Kiev.
Vladimir Klitschko Rodionovich who was 64 died after a long battle with cancer.
A colonel in the Air Force, Rodionovich took what was described as ?an active part? in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster which is believed to have ultimately caused his death at a comparatively young age.
Rodionovich reportedly watched his son, WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir demolish Britain?s David Haye on television while in a clinic in Hamburg and was later moved to Kiev to spend his last days there.
World Boxing Council president Don Jose Sulaiman said that the Klitschko?s father had worked in the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine and ?after the nuclear disaster in that place, he was one of the people in charge of directing the cleanup of all that was left there.?
Sulaiman said Vitali and Wladimir were next to their father up to the end.
Sulaiman who is a good friend of this family, especially of the champions has already established communication with them and has decreed three days of world mourning in boxing.
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