The Ukrainian national men's elite boxing team, led by Head Coach Dmytro Sosnovskiy, came back from the AIBA World Championships in Baku with its best ever medal haul, topping the team ranking after winning four golds and one silver medal.
Sosnovskiy was born in Siberia, in the city of Norylsk on April 11 in 1958 and currently resides in the city of Lviv, Ukraine. He was only 21 when he began coaching boxing in 1979. He graduated and got the opportunity of putting his studies into practise from the Lviv State Institute of physical training back in 1980 and has not looked back since.
Following his coaching studies, Sosnovskiy got his big international break following his appointment as Head Coach of the Ukrainian boxing national team in 2004, shortly after the Athens Summer Olympic Games.
In his first outing with the team at the 2005 AIBA World Boxing Championships in Mianjang, they fared well with Ismail Syllakh securing a silver medal for the country in the Middleweight division.
The first Ukrainian gold medal of the Sosnovskiy era in a major tournament was achieved by the Heavyweight boxer Denis Poyatsika at the 2006 European Championships in Plovdiv. There the Ukrainian squad finished third overall in the team ranking, above such leading nations as Russia and the hosts Bulgaria.
The 14th edition of the AIBA World Boxing Championships was also a qualification event for the Beijing Olympic Games and the new Ukrainian stars really shined in Chicago. Vasyl Lomachenko, at only 19 years of age, managed to secure an impressive silver medal while Vyacheslav Glazkov got one of his own and Serhiy Derevyanchenko took a bronze in the Middleweight category.
The Beijing Games was Sosnovskiy's first taste of the Olympics and the competition resulted in some of the country's best sporting moments. Vasyl Lomachenko not only secured the gold medal in the Featherweight division but he was then awarded the tournament's best boxer award, the Val Barker Trophy, becoming the first Ukrainian boxer to do so in the history of the Olympic Games. Vyacheslav Glazkov himself took home a bronze medal from Beijing.
In this current Olympic era, the Ukrainians have won the team rankings at the 2008 European Championships in Liverpool and at the 2009 AIBA World Boxing Championships in Milan where Vasyl Lomachenko became World Champion, Roman Kapitanenko achieved silver and European Champion Oleksandr Usyk earned a bronze medal in the Heavyweight category.
Under Dmytro Sosnovskiy's supervision the Ukrainian squad won the team event at the 2010 European Cup, held in Kharkiv but the greatest ever showing was at the recent AIBA World Boxing Championships in Baku where Vasyl Lomachenko, Taras Shelestyuk, Ievgen Khytrov and Oleksandr Usyk all took gold. This incredible haul of medals placed the Ukrainian squad at the top of the team ranking.
He received the Order of Merit after the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 and is now considered a living legend in Ukraine. With 31 years of experience, he is revered and admired throughout the world of boxing.
As Head Coach, Dmytro Sosnovskiy has managed to create a strong bond between all Ukrainian boxers, giving them a true sense of identity and belonging. As well as instilling unparalleled team-spirit, he has proved to be one of the greatest motivators and the most professional of organisers. There could be no other choice to receive the Best Coach trophy.
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