Wladimir Klitschko

He is the son of Nadiia Ulianivna Klychko (née Bulyno) and Volodymyr Rodionovych Klychko (1947–2011), a Soviet Air Force major general and a military Attaché of USSR in East Germany.

He is the younger brother of former WBC, WBO, and Ring magazine heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko, the current Mayor of Kyiv.

Klitschko's paternal grandmother was Jewish.

Wladimir Klitschko (born 25 March 1976) is a Ukrainian former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2017.

He held the world heavyweight championship twice, including the unified WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO, and Ring magazine titles.

A strategic and intelligent boxer, Klitschko is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time.

He was known for his exceptional knockout power, using a strong jab, straight right hand and left hook, quick hand speed, great physical strength which he employed when clinching opponents, as well as athletic footwork and mobility, unusual for boxers of his size.

The Klitschko brothers lived as children in Czechoslovakia from 1980 to 1985, where their father was stationed with the Soviet occupation forces.

They attended a school designated for children of Soviet soldiers in the town of Mimoň in Northern Bohemia.

Both Wladimir and Vitali hold PhDs in sports science, with Wladimir's dissertation discussing how much training to give to young athletes between 14 and 19 based on the development of their bodies.

As a reference to their PhDs, Wladimir is announced as "Dr. Steelhammer", a nickname similar to his brother, Vitali, who goes by "Dr. Ironfist".

Klitschko started training in amateur boxing with Brovary Olympic Reserve School in the late 1980s.

His father was one of the commanders in charge of cleaning up the effects of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and was afterward diagnosed with cancer.

In the early 1990s, Klitschko was coached in Poland's Gwardia Warszawa boxing club, where, according to Jerzy Kulej, "He and his brother used to demolish our boys."

In 1993, he won the Junior European Championships as a heavyweight.

In 1994, he received 2nd place at the Junior World Championships in Istanbul, Turkey, losing to Cuban Michel López Núñez in the finals.

In particular, Steward was credited with Klitschko's transition from an aggressive puncher to a more defensively-oriented boxer, much as he had done with Lennox Lewis from 1995 to 2003.

In 1995, he won the gold medal at the Military Championships in Ariccia, Italy, defeating Luan Krasniqi, to whom he had lost in the third round of the World Championships in Berlin, Germany earlier that year.

As an amateur, Klitschko represented Ukraine at the 1996 Olympics, winning a gold medal in the super-heavyweight division.

In 1996, he captured 2nd place as a Super Heavyweight at the European Championships in Vejle, Denmark losing to Alexei Lezin in the finals.

He defeated Lezin later that year in the semi-finals at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

He had an amateur record of 134–6.

He first achieved world attention at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.

He defeated Paea Wolfgramm to win the Super-Heavyweight gold medal.

After turning professional later that year, he defeated Chris Byrd in 2000 to win the WBO heavyweight title.

Klitschko's first reign as champion ended in an upset knockout loss to Corrie Sanders in 2003, which was followed by another upset knockout loss to Lamon Brewster in 2004.

From 2004 to 2015, Wladimir and his brother Vitali Klitschko (himself a multiple-time world champion) dominated heavyweight boxing, a period typically known as the "Klitschko Era" of the division.

In 2006, Wladimir regained a portion of the world heavyweight championship after defeating Byrd in a rematch to win the IBF and IBO titles.

He won his second WBO title by defeating Sultan Ibragimov in 2008.

Following his defeat of Ruslan Chagaev in 2009, Klitschko was awarded the Ring title, and lastly he won the WBA title from David Haye in 2011.

He was also ranked among 10 best pound for pound boxers in the world by The Ring from 17 August 2010 until 23 November 2015, reaching his career peak of No.2 on 25 November 2014.

During Klitschko's reign as world heavyweight champion, his fights regularly generated a global television audience of 300–500 million viewers.

Klitschko holds records for the longest cumulative heavyweight title reign of all time, with 4,382 days as world heavyweight champion, and most fighters beaten for the world heavyweight championship, at 23.

He also holds records for the most wins and title defences of the unified championship in professional boxing history.

In 2011, both Wladimir and Vitali entered the Guinness World Records book as the pair of brothers with most world heavyweight title fight wins (30 at the time; 40 as of 2020).

Klitschko was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame Class of 2021, having been elected in his first year of eligibility.

Klitschko was born in Semipalatinsk, Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union (now Semey, Kazakhstan).

It was during this time that Klitschko hired Emanuel Steward as his trainer, which began an eight-year partnership that lasted until Steward's death in 2012.

After defeating Alexander Povetkin in October 2013 and until his loss to Tyson Fury in November 2015, Klitschko was recognised as the lineal champion by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board.

For a period of time in the fall of 2015, Klitschko was ranked as the world's best active boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec.