โI DON’T think that feeling can come back again.โ
What do you do when youโve gotten exactly what you wanted? What do you do next?
Vasyl Lomachenko achieved his heartโs desire in 2008, in Beijing, when he won the Olympic Games. He was 20 years old. โIt was when everything I dreamed came true. Thatโs what I was going for all my life, thatโs what I was training for. Itโs everything. That was Beijing,โ he said. โFor me the Beijing gold medal is everything. I donโt have even the words to describe it. I donโt even know how to say those feelings.โ
His efforts to recapture the extraordinary elation of that moment have been unparalleled. Heโs still searching to recapture it. He won two amateur World championships and a second Olympic Games. As a professional won the WBO featherweight world title in a mere three fights. But heโs still not there, still not where he was. The joy of it is somehow distant, the pitch of the emotion diminishing. Maybe he has to go further still, to win every title going in his division. โIf even I can compare, right now, itโs going to be when you have all the titles. Iโm going to be unified,โ he said, before adding, โI donโt think that feeling can come back again.โ
Thatโs the melancholy of winning. The moment passes.
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Vasyl Lomachenko turns on the style in Macau