The sports world has tragically lost one of its own. The former ISKA kickboxing world champion in 2014, the Ukrainian Maksym Kagal died last Friday in Mariupol, where the fighting is most intense against the Russian army, we learned from his trainer Oleg Skirta, on Instagram.
The latter communicated: “Unfortunately, the war takes away the best of us. On March 25, while defending the city of Mariupol as part of the Azov special detachment, Maksym Kagal died. He was just an honest, decent man. Rest in peace my brother, we will take revenge on you. »
Maksym Kagal was 30 years old, and had joined the special unit of the Azov regiment in 2014, a controversial unit because it had been created by far-right militants at the start of the war in eastern Ukraine against pro-Russian separatists.
It is not the first time since the beginning of the war that athletes have died in combat. The young Ukrainian biathlete Yevhen Malyshev but also footballers Vitalii Sapylo and Dmytro Martynenko have sadly lost their lives since the start of the war more than a month ago. On Monday, it was Sergiy Stakhovsky, the former tennis player on the front who had testified to the difficult living conditions on the front.