A ballet dancer as a child, Vasyl Lomachenko’s journey to becoming one of the most decorated amateur and professional boxers of all time was like no other.

Born in southwestern Ukraine in 1988, his father Anatoly, a boxing coach, demanded that he undertook ballet before stepping foot into any boxing ring. This turned out to be a stroke of genius from Lomachenko Snr.

‘Nomas’ was a two-time Olympic and World Championships gold medalist and boasted an amateur record of 396-1, the solitary defeat coming in the 2007 World Championships against Albert Selimov, a setback which Lomachenko would go on to avenge numerous times. 

Victories over the likes of 2016 Olympic gold medalist Robson Conceicao, Souleymane Cissokho, Oscar Valdez and Andrew Selby in the unpaid ranks eventually led to the Ukrainian taking the plunge and turning professional just over a year after his London 2012 success. 

Up against Jose Luis Ramirez, Vasyl didn’t hang about when securing a fourth-round knockout over the Mexican. Off the back of that victory, he dared to be great when taking on Orlando Salido for the vacant WBO World Featherweight title and, despite it being a closely fought contest, he came up just short. Salido did, however, weigh in overweight, meaning the title remained vacant.

Despite the minor setback, Loma’s rise to the top continued when he made it second time lucky for the WBO crown by defeating the previously unbeaten Gary Russell Jr by majority decision to become a world champion in just his third professional contest.

Eight defences of that title followed before he made the decision to step up to lightweight to face Jorge Linares in a bid to become a two-weight world champion. Despite being dropped in the sixth round, Lomachenko rallied and stopped the Venezuelan with a sickening body shot in the 10th to be crowned the new WBA World Lightweight champion. He unified the division in his next fight when picking up the WBO title against Jose Pedraza and then went on to claim his third title at the weight with a unanimous points win over the talented Luke Campbell for the WBA, WBO and WBC titles. 

‘The Ukrainian Matrix’ then suffered only the second defeat of his professional career, and third in over 400 fights, when he was edged out on points by the unbeaten Teofimo Lopez in Las Vegas. Career-saving shoulder surgery followed that loss and with back-to-back victories over Masayoshi Nakatani and Richard Commey, he’s patiently waiting once again for his shot at the big time.

The general consensus in boxing these days is that to be a success, you need to be able to talk the talk just as much as you walk the walk. However, Lomachenko has continually let his hands do the talking and combining all of his achievements as an amateur and a professional, he can certainly be regarded as a legend of the sport.