Daniel Lapin pulls up a video on his phone and, having chatted away for 40 minutes, lets the images do the talking. Or, more accurately, the sounds. It is a scene he captured in the early hours of a Kyiv morning during the spring and what stands out above everything is the awful, incessant, gathering buzz of the Russian-controlled drones that plague Ukraine\u2019s capital almost every night. Sleep is rendered impossible for residents during those attacks, partly due to the sheer noise and in huge degree to the fear that you, or your loved ones, will be struck next. \u201cAfter a night like that you don\u2019t want to train,\u201d he says. \u201cIt can go on five nights in a row. You don\u2019t want anything, you\u2019re just walking around like a zombie.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, though, Lapin will be fully alert to the task at hand. The light-heavyweight is Ukraine\u2019s next boxing hope, his promise and pedigree immense, and his fight against Lewis Edmondson will be a highlight of the undercard before Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> and Daniel Dubois contest their undisputed world heavyweight title bout at Wembley. Lapin has seen Russia\u2019s aggression stall his career on two distinct occasions but is closer than ever to carving out a legend of his own.<\/p>\n His bond with Usyk is tight. Although born in Poland he grew up in Simferopol, the Crimean city that was also home to Usyk. The superstar has honed a keen appreciation of the younger man\u2019s talent; Lapin is a trusted member of his camp and a regular training partner. \u201cEverything works like a Swiss clock,\u201d Lapin says of the disciplined, intensely motivated regime implemented on the east coast of Spain. No phones are allowed, let alone any social media; news of the horrors that continue to unfold back home barely trickles through until camp members return to the outside world.<\/p>\n It says plenty for Lapin\u2019s mentality that he has progressed this far. In 2014 he was 16 and thriving at amateur level, hoping to compete at the Youth Olympic Games and European Championships, when Russia annexed Crimea<\/a> and a potentially critical period in his young career was effectively written off. \u201cIt had been a very developed boxing scene, hard, a lot of competitors,\u201d he says. \u201cBut then Russia destroyed sport in Crimea.<\/p>\n \u201cIt became completely cut off from the rest of the world. I was there for three years under occupation and did almost nothing: I only wanted to box for Ukraine. The occupation broke my amateur career. It felt very bad, like a kind of depression.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel Lapin takes on Britain\u2019s Lewis Edmondson on Saturday. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth\/AP<\/p>\n Many of his friends became stuck, or went down undesirable routes. Would it not have been easy for Lapin\u2019s life to slide into disrepair, or worse? \u201cI had a dream to become a world champion and I have a mental goal to make it,\u201d he says. \u201cI understood that, if I got into anything else, I wouldn\u2019t be anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n He was eventually able to leave for Kyiv and begin working with Usyk, who his father had previously coached. Lapin\u2019s brother is also Usyk\u2019s team director. The conditions were in place for quick development and, eventually, a winning professional debut in August 2020. He had grown to a towering 6ft 6in, his shape returning after those years out of competition, but the uncertainties of plotting a path to the top remained.<\/p>\n \u201cI lived alone, had very little money, had to organise my own life around training sessions,\u201d he says. \u201cThen when you go to the camp, there\u2019s a strict training regime but you return to your empty flat and have to cook for yourself. You\u2019re looking on YouTube for recipes. I\u2019d cook a huge portion of buckwheat to last a week, but would end up burning it.\u201d<\/p>\n Nonetheless Lapin\u2019s professional life continued to blossom. By the time Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine<\/a> in February 2022, he had won five of five professional fights, overcoming Poland\u2019s Pawel Martyniuk at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on the Usyk-Joshua<\/a> undercard five months previously. The rematch was in his sights when everything became unmoored again.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d just recovered from Covid and was waiting to start shaping up again,\u201d he says. \u201cThat morning I got up, there were bangs, the building near us was cracked at the top. In the next four months I lost 11 kilos and it was hard to start training again. Russia disrupted my career twice.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel Lapin lands a blow against Dylan Colin on his way to victory last December \u2013 it was his 11th victory of 11 professional fights. Photograph: Richard Pelham\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Once again he bounced back, gathering himself to link up with the camp again and overcome Slovakia\u2019s Josef Jurko in Jeddah that August. Lapin views anticipation, \u201cseeing the punches\u201d, as his biggest strength but plenty of other attributes have amassed since he followed the family example and took up boxing, hesitantly at first, during childhood. He has won all 11 of his professional fights, four by knockout. A world title shot cannot be far off. Usyk is a constant source of encouragement and advice \u2013 \u201cHe who is afraid dies\u201d is Lapin\u2019s favourite \u2013 but he knows that, despite the network around him, the final push comes from within.<\/p>\n \u201cWorking with an undisputed world champion doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ll become one too,\u201d he says. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t work that way. In the end it depends only on the fighter himself.\u201d<\/p>\n Lapin\u2019s time has been split between Kyiv, the Usyk camp and London in the buildup to Saturday. On the phone screen he shows more harrowing videos, this time taken by friends in the past week, of drones wailing to a crescendo before exploding close to residential buildings. Wembley will host an occasion that has significance far beyond the sport he loves but he knows at first-hand that symbolism will only do a fraction of the job for Ukraine.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery activity that highlights Ukraine in the international area is massively important, of course,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we are waiting for actions, not only for highlighting.\u201d For Lapin and the rest of the Usyk camp, action is what comes naturally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Lapin pulls up a video on his phone and, having chatted away for 40 minutes, lets the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-272107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114874425307685244","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}