The story of Amir Khan 
A devout Muslim, who in 2005 after the earthquake in Kashmir has left for Pakistan to bring aid and food for a field. Amir's grandparents, Janja Rajput clan of Rawalpindi in Punjab province, started by Pakistan in the 50s. Even in Bolton, where he was born and raised, have learned to appreciate their generosity. He spent one million pounds of his earnings to open the Gloves Community Centre and a boxing gym to keep kids off the streets. He also raised over £ 6000 to help a firefighter was severely burned while trying to save a family from a fire.
Wandererers supporters of Bolton, has often benefited from the facilities to train the Whites, and in 2004 became the youngest Olympic medalist in the name Union Jack, winning silver in Athens in 2004 at age 17, in the category of light weights. The only British representative at the Games in Greece surrenders to end the Cuban Mario Kindelan, who had already beaten Greece in a few months earlier in the match preparation.
Khan began fighting at age 11, and soon came the first victories: three English school titles, three titles ABA junior, the junior Olympic gold in 2003. He also wins the European student in Lithuania and the world junior lightweight title in South Korea, where he fought five times in seven days.
After silver in Athens says to aim for gold in Beijing, but changed his mind a year after turning pro and signing with the promoter Frank Warren. The first match of relief in his pro career is a meeting that is the title of the Commonwealth lightweight champion Willie Limond against, July 14, 2007. Khan is knocked in the sixth round, it seems heavily wounded. But got up and knocked the next shot the opponent.
December 8, the day of his twenty-first birthday, defends the title against Graham Earl, the best lightweight in Britain, in the past challenger for the championship. Between the two there is some rust, which occurred the day before, which increases the interest for the challenge. But the match lasted just 72 seconds, then the arbitrator decides that Earl is not in a position to continue the match.
beat Kristjansen on April 5 in the seventh round of the qualifying rounds for the WBO world lightweight. After the meeting, on the advice of his father Shah, leaving his trainer, Oliver Harrison, who had followed him for all his 17 professional encounters. Harrison had criticized the preparation of Khan in the last match, claiming that he had given too much emphasis on appearance result of his work and participated in too many press conferences. Harrison, however, refused to make himself available for interviews the day before the challenge. On March 14, 2009
Khan beats Antonio Barrera, No. 1 in the WBO rankings of lightweights, in Manchester. But despite the insistence of their promoter, the match is not considered final for the title of the category. Khan, however, that title gets beating Andreas Kotelnik July 18: at age 22 is the third youngest world champion for Britain after Naseem Hamed and Herbie Hide. In December, Khan defends crown against Dmitriy Salita.
Ascent: the company is exceptionally be normal
"A guy who looks Russian, prays for and fights like a black jew." In his succinct definition of the technical as well as his best friend, Jimmy O'Pharrow, there is the whole life of Dmitry Salita. "Jimmy O" is a Catholic color, ultra-eighties, which since 1978 manages the Starrett City Boxing Club, and he has seen many boxers. But just combines so many young souls like Dmitry, but does not feel like a contradiction between Judaism and coexistence activities boxer.
"Compared to other sports," he said in an interview with, "boxing is one that compensates for less than the amount of effort it requires. We make a living in the true sense of the word, with the blood, sweat and tears. But boxing is only part of what they are: my enter religious life as anyone else, whether an athlete, a lawyer, a taxi driver or another. "
For Ascent, moments before a match have a very high spiritual value. "Before every meet my religious feelings are intensified as never before, my relationship with God at that time is up. Then, if you can really believe it's there with you in the ring, the place suddenly becomes less lonely. And in those moments only God can help. For this reason, boxing has helped me to become more religious. "
A feeling that Dmitry has discovered only once landed in America. But Lekhtman Dmitry Alexandrovich (this is the real name of Ascent) passion for boxing has felt before, when he still lived with his family in Odessa. The family did not practice the Jewish religion, a legacy of government policies that forbade Soviet era most Jewish observances, and the pogroms that had claimed so many victims in the second half of the nineteenth century. At 5 years, Dmitry assists in a TV boxing fight with Mike Tyson: jumped immediately after the meeting in his room trying to imitate the moves. He had dreamed of a road now had only to follow it.
And that road led away, carrying the United States. In 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence from the USSR, the family left for Brooklyn. Dmitry was nine years old. "We came to America mainly because we were discriminated against as Jews," he said. "My parents believed that the USSR would not have grown up with the opportunity to seek the best for ourselves. My brother Misha, who is nine years older than me, he was often involved in fights because they were teased. Every now and then some rumor of pogroms, and my father bought a gun just in case. It was hard to get a job or get into a prestigious school level and be proud of being Jewish. "
I primi tempi in America, però, sono diversi da come se li era prospettati. Mentre il padre e fratello entrano nel settore delle costruzioni, Dmitry inizia a frequentare la scuola. Anche qui i compagni lo prendono in giro, perché straniero, perché indossava vestiti “strani”, gli stessi che portava in Russia, perché non parlava inglese. “Dovevo imparare a difendermi” racconta, “ho iniziato col karate poi mio fratello mi ha portato in una palestra di pugilato. E qui è cominciato tutto. A scuola ho picchiato parecchi compagni, sono stato sospeso più volte, ma hanno iniziato a rispettarmi”.
La madre, Ljudmilla, non è d'accordo inizialmente con la scelta the child. Both parents are graduates of Dmitry, and professional boxing is seen as less a choice of last resort. Yet it is she who wakes him every morning at six o'clock because she runs a Dmitri, then returns home for a shower before going to school, and gym in the afternoon before homework. Boxing, it's in the blood gives punched the air when she walks in front of a mirror, if it hits the water in the shower. "There is no one who works like you," his mother told him, 'so I think it will become a champion. " A fate that also serves to eradicate the stereotype of the typical anti-Semitic world and culture that wants Jews inferior to others. "I wanted prove to the world that a jew can become a great champion of the world. "
Until one day in 1997, Dmitry returns home to find Ljudmilla on the ground, suffering a stroke: suffered from breast cancer was quite advanced. It does not change his routine, just add a step: the Sloan Kettering Hospital, where he often spends his nights in the room where the mother is hospitalized.
Over the last months of his battle, after losing two years shortly after Dmitry had won the bronze at the Junior Olympics, Ljudmilla sharing a hospital room with a woman. She will change the lives of the young Dmitri. He was an Orthodox Jew who belonged to Chabat Lubavitch, a sect dell'hasidismo movement, which is its ultra-orthodox paradigm. The Chabat, a Hebrew acronym that stands for wisdom, knowledge and understanding, it is proposed to move aggressively into the world to save the souls of the Jews. From his perspective, not looking to get a jew to obey at least one of the commandments, even reciting a prayer or lighting a candle, is a good deed, a mitzvah.
Until 1994 it was governed by Chabad Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and is now led by Rabbi Zalman Liberovici. E 'with him about that climb, he discovers that he is with Judaism. With this old but vibrant priest dall'incolta by the bright red beard and blue eyes, he talked about everything of worship and boxing, rites and sport.
began to pray, to respect scrupulously the prescriptions, do not fight on the Sabbath. More success in the sport gets, the more attentive and becomes his uncompromising respect for the orthodoxy of worship. For the boxer who fights with boxing gloves on the Star of David, who chose his initials as a logo embedded in the Jewish symbol par excellence, religion comes before the profession, even if it cost him a lot in terms of popularity possible. Was unable to participate in several fights broadcast live by ESPN in its Friday Nights, chose not to represent the U.S. at the World Championships in Budapest because amateurs i combattimenti sarebbero stati programmati per il venerdì sera o nella giornata di sabato.
Nel 2000 arriva alle semifinali dei campionati dilettanti Usa Under-19 a Gulfport, Mississippi. Ma l'incontro è in programma durante il Sabbath, e Salita ha fatto una promessa: non metterò mai la religione dietro lo sport. Si confida anche con un giornalista del Massachussets. Ed è lui che parla con gli organizzatori: l'incontro viene spostato e Salita vince.
Nel 2001 un suo incontro in programma allo Staples Center di Los Angeles è stato cancellato perché l'inizio del match coincideva con una festività religiosa, il Tishah B'av (un giorno di lutto e digiuno nel calendario religioso luni-solare del Giudaismo che può cadere a luglio o agosto).
Nel 2002 un suo match viene finalmente trasmesso su ESPN 2, il 13 settembre: è pur sempre un venerdì, ma essendo programmato come apertura prima della sfida che vale il mondiale dei pesi medio-leggeri tra Oscar de la Hoya e Fernando Vargas, inizia abbastanza presto da non coincidere con il Sabbath. Nello stesso anno gli viene offerto un piccolo ruolo in una fiction sulla boxe prodotta dall'HBO, “Infamous”: avrebbe dovuto perdere contro il protagonista del film, interpretato da John Leguizamo. Ma rifiuta. “Chi non mi conosceva mi avrebbe visto perdere” e lui, da pro, ha sempre e solo vinto fino a quel momento.
Dopo un record di 59-5 da dilettante, go professional in 2001 at age 19. E 'Rabbi Liberovici directing it towards the promoter Bob Arum's Las Vegas, which in the past was also George Foreman, Larry Holmes Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino star who shares climb with a deep religious vocation, in his case Catholic.
The rabbi remembers a meeting a few years earlier: while studying at the headquarters of Chabat, Crown Height, Brooklyn, had seen Bob Arum, jew conservative who grew up in the neighborhood and had many gifts bestowed in the years to Chabad. E 'to send to your Liberovici Arum cassettes. The promoter, initially skeptical, he acknowledges that Ascent is strong, a hard worker, and is quick to arms. Signing a contract only on the basis of the talent of the boy who recognizes, is also a totally unique product.
The signing takes place two months after Dmitry, to 19 years by one day, he won the Golden Gloves (Golden Gloves) tournament to be held in New York, in the category of light weight, than the prize Sugar Ray Robinson as the best boxer of the event.
Ascent always leaves his mentor, Jimmy O'Pharrow, and moved to Gleason's Gym, also in Brooklyn, and began working with Hector Roca, who was coach of thirteen future world champions.
But the relationship with Arum does not go as planned. Gradient is no "background", do not fight on stage important and in 2004 signed with Lou Di Bella, a former executive at HBO Boxing and creator of Broadway Boxing, dedicated to the presentation of boxing in New York.
On March 18, 2009 fight against Ramon Montano, in the main undercard match in Atlantic City planned to accompany the match-day event, the challenge for the championship of the greatest James Toney-Hasim Rahman. Climb it to the mat twice in the first round, though in the end unable to defend his record of zero defeats coming to an unexpected draw. But it is shaken, does not remove his sunglasses during the post-match press conference. He was discouraged, he did not know what to do.
But back stronger than before: in May, knocked in ten shots Raul "El Toro" Munoz, dominating with powerful shots and finishing with an uppercut just below the cheekbone. And in December Amir Khan challenge for the title of light.
Although undefeated, the bookmakers' odds are not favorable: Ladbrokes gives the victory of Khan 1 to 8.
Khan against Ascent
The duel is a bit disappointing 'expectations of the public, among which there is also a documentary filmmaker who spends Christmas Eve and assists in fighting among teenagers Muslims and Jews and try to exploit the meeting as an opportunity to promote inter-cultural dialogue.
But the meeting lasted just 76 seconds: much, in fact, resistant to freezing voce sconfitte di Dmitry Salita, che finisce al tappeto tre volte prima di abbandonare l'incontro. La prima dopo appena dieci secondi. Khan è aggressivo, e una combinazione sinistro-destro manda ko Salita.
“Ho visto che gli tremavano le gambe”, ha detto nelle interviste dopo-gara. “Sapevo che avrei vinto, dovevo solo aspettare l'occasione giusta”.
Ed è sempre spingendo e attaccando col sinistro che Khan costringe prima in ginocchio l'avversario, poi con un gancio lo mette al tappeto per la terza volta. A questo punto l'arbitro, il portoricano Luis Pavon, ferma l'incontro. Khan festeggia e difende il titolo di campione del mondo. Soddisfatto also his coach, Freddie Roach, Manny Pacquiao of the same, which was crucial to allow Khan to overcome the problems after a heavy defeat against the unknown Colombian Brendais Prescott in 2008.
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