(Warsaw) Ukrainian boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk was handcuffed at Poland’s Krakow airport following an incident with airline and border guards, the latter said on Wednesday.
According to their statements, Mr Usyk “lost his temper” when his travelling companion was denied boarding for disruptive behaviour.
The world heavyweight champion described the incident late Tuesday as a “misunderstanding”, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X that he was “disappointed by this attitude towards our citizen”.
The 37-year-old boxer had planned to travel from Krakow airport to Thessaloniki, Greece, with another man on a flight operated by Polish airline Buzz, a subsidiary of Ryanair, on Tuesday.
“The passenger travelling with Mr Usyk was rightly denied boarding […] by the gate agent at Krakow airport due to his disruptive behaviour,” Ryanair said in a statement sent to AFP on Wednesday.
“Mr Usyk was not denied boarding, but chose not to board,” the airline said, adding that the gate agent then requested assistance from airport police.
The two men “were somewhat upset. They did not want to leave the boarding gate. In accordance with the procedure, our officers intervened,” local border guard spokesman Jacek Michalowski told AFP.
“They were given a warning and released,” he added, denying that they had been detained.
“As you saw online, one of those people was handcuffed, but it was just for preventive reasons, because he was upset and we needed to get him into the room in peace,” Michalowski said of a video circulating on social media showing officers escorting Usyk in handcuffs through the airport.
Usyk became the first undisputed world heavyweight champion with four belts in May when he defeated Britain’s Tyson Fury in Riyadh.