You're reading: Lomachenko steps up for second gold

Ukraine's Vasyl Lomachenko showed why he is regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the amateur ranks on Sunday when he showed no ill effects in moving up in weight to romp home to a second successive Olympic gold.

Lomachenko was just about the hottest favorite of the London
Games after he followed up the featherweight gold he won with ease in Beijing
with a world title apiece at both feather and lightweight class.

It was the same story in London when he rarely had to move
into top gear despite moving up a class and he had too much for South Korea’s
Han Soon-chul, easing to a 19-9 win in front of compatriot and world
professional champion Vladimir Klitschko.

The irrepressible Lomachenko was in a different league to
the Korean, taking the first round 7-2 with fierce right and left upper-cuts,
punishing body shots topped off with sleek footwork that is almost unmatched
among the amateur game.

The 24-year-old Ukrainian, who sports a tattoo of his father
and coach Anatoly’s face on his abdomen, continued boxing the kind of fight
that would please any coach, keeping Han at bay to widen his lead by a point.

He was able to take his foot off the gas in the final round
and coast to a victory.

Lomachenko, who will join the Olympic boxing governing
body’s professional league next year meaning he will still be eligible to go
for a third gold in 2016, cracked his first smile of the Games when the result
was announced.

Putting two fingers in the air to acknowledge both his
second gold and the second for Ukraine at the Games, Lomachenko was hugged by
Klitschko as he left the ring draped in the Ukrainian flag.

“I’m really proud of my countryman Lomachenko, it is
not a common thing to win two times,” Klitschko said from ringside.
“It would be really exciting to see him in a professional ring.”

Losing semi-finalists Yasniel Toledo Lopez of Cuba and
Evaldas Petrauskas of Lithuania took bronze.