Edmund Lipinskiy

Name: Edmund Lipinski
Hometown: Moscow, Russia
Birthplace: Dnipro, Ukraine
Died: 2009-03-20 (Age:73)
Inspector: Record
Supervisor: Record

Edmund Cheslavovich Lipinskiy (born: January 6, 1936 in Dnepropetrovsk, USSR (now Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine) - died: March 20, 2009 in Stuttgart, Germany) was a man of many parts: Boxing expert, undoubtedly; an intellectual who never lost the common touch in dealings with his colleagues; a quitlyspoken individual and a superb administrator who initially had the difficult task of creating rules and guidelines for Russian boxing. Once an amateur fighter himself, he was conferred the title "Master of sports of the USSR" in 1959; he was presented with an award of "The Honor Coach of Russia" for his trainer achievements in 1973. He was a head of Russian Boxing Federation from 1982 to 1989, at the same time being the deputy chairman of USSR Boxing Federation (since 1985).
Lipinskiy died while being the Deputy General Director of the Moscow City Sports Bureau (since 1990), also the president of the Independent and Slovenian Boxing Bureau (since 1993) and the vice-president of the WBC (1996). He was recognized as one of the most influential personalities in Russian boxing, being one of the reasons why Russia has come into power as one of the world's leading boxing countries. He received the WBC Lifetime Achievement award in 2005. Edmund was the leader of the Russia Boxing Federation in 1987, the year that the institution joined the World Boxing Council. Edmund was a member of the WBC International Championships Committee, too. On reflection, one of the nice things about Edmund was that his manner of speech never changed, regardless of the circumstances. In any situation he was always a quietly-spoken person, respectful of differing opinions and always courteous and, at the same time, intelligently working to achieve a workable consensus. There are many stories to tell about Edmund, all of them are nice stories. Just to mention one, in 1989 Edmund organized one of the best WBC Conventions of all times, maybe the best. On September 23 that year, Lipinskiy was able to organize a visit to the Russian Cultural Foundation building for President Jose Sulaiman and a few WBC people to meet Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev who was in a private room in the depths of his despair as his beloved wife Raisa had died three days before. President Sulaiman placed a WBC wreath on Raisa's chest and then spoke to Mr. Gorbachev who greeted the WBC delegation and apologised for being unable to attend convention and receive his award.

Lipinskiy lapsed into coma on Friday morning and was taken to the hospital by ambulance but sadly died never regaining consciousness Stuttgart (Germany) Friday 20th March 2009. The WBC heavyweight world title fight between champion Vitali Klitschko and challenger Juan Carlos Gomez was darkened by this sad news coming from Stuttgart, the city where this bout was going to take place the following night.