Ukraine boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk released after brief detention in Poland

News

Ukraine boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk released after brief detention in Poland

2024-09-18 20:26 Last Updated At：20:30

KRAKOW, Poland (AP) — Heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk has been released after being briefly detained at Krakow airport in Poland, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.

“I was disappointed by this attitude towards our citizen and champion,” said Zelenskyy after he had a phone conversation with Usyk. “Our champion has been released, and he is no longer being detained.”

He posted a photo of Usyk with Ukraine’s Consul General in Krakow after the athlete was released.

The 37-year-old Usyk is one of Ukraine’s most prominent athletes known abroad, and he has organized and participated in different projects aiding his country’s efforts to resist Russia’s invasion.

“A misunderstanding took place. It was quickly resolved,” said Usyk, expressing gratitude for the “efficient support” of Ukrainian diplomats. “And respect to Polish Police for conducting their obligations with no regards to height, weight, reach and regalia,” he said on Instagram.

The airport's border guards said Usyk was protesting after an airline declined to take his traveling companion on board and the two refused to leave the gate. Usyk was briefly handcuffed as he was brought to the border guards’ police station.

“The two men had their journey canceled by the carrier and had their passenger status canceled,” Maj. Jacek Michałowski, spokesman for Krakow region Border Guards, told Krakow Gazette. “They did not want to leave the gate when requested and that’s why we were called in to take care of the situation.”

Recently appointed Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Andrii Sybiha, said on X that he was briefed on the details of Usyk’s detention. “Such actions toward our champion are disproportionate and unacceptable,” he said. “We’ll send a relevant note to the Polish side.”

Usyk beat Tyson Fury in May in Saudi Arabia to become the first undisputed world heavyweight champion in 24 years. He later announced that he vacated the belt, meaning the Ukrainian is no longer be the undisputed world champion.

Fury’s rematch with Usyk is scheduled for Dec. 21, again in Saudi Arabia. After that fight, Usyk is considering dropping a weight and returning to box at cruiserweight.

Usyk, an Olympic gold medalist in 2012, started his pro career as a cruiserweight and became the division’s undisputed champion in 2018 with a win over Russian Murat Gassiev to unify all four belts.

He moved up to heavyweight a year later and won three title belts against Anthony Joshua in 2021.

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

Germans mourn attack on Christmas market with no answers about why

2024-12-21 15:18 Last Updated At：15:21

MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Germans began Saturday mourning another violent attack and their shaken sense of security after a Saudi doctor drove a black BMW into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers on Friday evening, killing at least two people, including a small child, and injuring at least 60 others in what authorities called a deliberate attack.

Authorities identified the suspect as a 50-year-old who has been living in Germany for nearly two decades and practicing medicine there. He was arrested Friday evening at the site of the attack as medical officials tended to the injured, and was taken into custody for questioning.

But on Saturday there were still no answers as to what caused the man to drive into a crowd in the eastern Germany city of Magdeburg.

The violence shocked the country and the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that’s part of a centuries-old German tradition. It prompted several other German towns to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser were due to travel to Magdeburg on Saturday, and a memorial service is to take place in the city cathedral in the evening.

“My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives," Scholz wrote on X. "We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg.”

Magdeburg is a city of about 240,000 people, west of Berlin, that serves as Saxony-Anhalt’s capital. Friday’s attack came eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

Verified bystander footage distributed by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect’s arrest at a tram stop in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone, his head arched up slightly. Other officers soon arrived and took the man into custody.

The two people confirmed dead were an adult and a toddler, but officials said additional deaths couldn't be ruled out because 15 people had been seriously injured.

“As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city," Saxony-Anhalt's governor, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters. “Every human life that has fallen victim to this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many.”

Authorities identified the suspect as a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006 and who had been practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry condemned the attack on X but did not mention the suspect’s connection to the kingdom.

Christmas markets are a German holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages, now successfully exported to much of the Western world.

Hours after Friday's tragedy, the wail of sirens clashed with the market’s festive ornaments, stars and leafy garlands.

Magdeburg resident Dorin Steffen told dpa that she was at a concert in a nearby church when she heard the sirens. The cacophony was so loud “you had to assume that something terrible had happened.”

She called the attack “a dark day” for the city.

“We are shaking,” Steffen said. “Full of sympathy for the relatives, also in the hope that nothing has happened to our relatives, friends and acquaintances.”

The attack reverberated far beyond Magdeburg, with Haseloff calling it a catastrophe for the city, state and country. He said flags would be lowered to half-staff in Saxony-Anhalt and that the federal government planned to do the same.

“It is really one of the worst things one can imagine, particularly in connection with what a Christmas market should bring," the governor said.

Moulson reported from Berlin.