“Serhii Lysyuk passed away two years ago”, — write: sport.ua
Track in sports Serhiy Lysyuk was born in 1985 in the village of Korop, Novgorod-Siversky District, Chernihiv Oblast. In 2011, Serhii graduated from Taras Shevchenko Chernihiv Collegium National University, wrote and published articles in scientific publications about the peculiarities of training kickboxers, the development of martial arts, etc.
Lysyuk adored sports and devoted his life to it. He represented Ukraine at the international level for almost 20 years, was a 12-time world champion, a two-time European champion. Serhiy also trained young kickboxers. In 2023, shortly before his death, two of his pupils became WTKA world kickboxing champions.
Serhiy was a strong-willed athlete. During his career, he received a huge number of injuries, but at the same time he stubbornly went to the goal. “Only on one wrist, apparently, there were eight fractures,” said his wife Olga in an interview with the Chernihiv border group. – It happened that Serhiy won the World Championship with a broken arm. Another time he broke his arm, spent two weeks in a cast and went to the European Championship: he removed the cast in front of the ring and… became the champion. We laughed: one of the foreigners asked: “Why did he hit only with his left hand?” In the last fight, Serhii says: “I went crazy, and I’m going to hit from the right!”. “Why didn’t he hit with his right the whole tournament?”, the Europeans asked, and were very surprised to learn that his right hand was broken. He did not pay attention to it at all. As the neighbors said: “You can be seen without a cast for a couple of days a year.” I think that he had injuries because he did not have time to properly heal his injuries.”
At the same time, in 2009-2019, Serhiy worked as a senior teacher of the Department of Physical Training of the Academy of the State Penitentiary Service, in 2020-2022, as a controller of the second category of TU of the court security service, and also headed separate divisions of the Chernihiv Regional Kickboxing Federation ISKA and WTKA. In recent years, before the full-scale invasion, Lysyuk served in judicial security, in particular, he guarded the Chernihiv District Administrative Court.
Family Serhiy’s wife was also a successful athlete. Olena Bibyk from Pryluk in Sumy Oblast is the European champion in biathlon among visually impaired athletes. The girl met Serhiy in a student dormitory. Olena said that it was love at first sight. 10 years after meeting, the couple had a son, Maxim. The boy plays football at the Desna SDYUSHOR.
Combat experience From the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Serhiy stood up for the defense of the Motherland, at the front he had the call sign Postgraduate. At first, he fought as part of the Chernihiv territorial defense and repelled the attack of enemy forces on his native city. In the summer of 2022, already after the occupiers had left Chernihiv Oblast, Serhiy’s contract in court security ended.
Although the service in Chernihiv might seem to some to be a relatively peaceful place to work in wartime, Serhiy deliberately decided not to renew his contract and joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Not the last role in this choice was played by the fact that Serhiy Lysyuk’s pupil, kickboxer Anatoly Leonenko under the pseudonym “Buyvol” lost his leg during the battles for Mariupol. Another pupil of Serhiy Yevhen Zvonok, whom Serhiy Lysyuk was supposed to take to the World Cup in March of the same year 2022, joined the ranks of the TRO with the beginning of the invasion and died during the bombing of the 18th school in Podusivka.
At the same time, the Chernihiv TCC did not want to mobilize Lysyuk, they say, a graduate student, an athlete. In order to join the army, Serhiy, along with his friend and pupil Anatoly Shovkun, had to go to another city: from there, the athletes were sent to the Special Operations Forces.
Lysyuk served in the Separate Center for Special Operations “West” named after Prince Izyaslav Mstislavych, held the position of senior flamethrower operator, took part in training in Great Britain and Lithuania, received the profession of intelligence officer in Berdychev, Zhytomyr region.
Subsequently, Lysyuk defended the Eastern direction of the front. In Bakhmut, Donetsk region, he was a medic for his combat unit for some time.
Death On November 6, 2023, in the area of the village of Stepove, Pokrovsky district, Donetsk region, during an assault on enemy positions, Serhii’s car ran into an anti-tank mine. Even after receiving severe injuries, the fighter was conscious and helped his comrades who provided him and his comrades with first aid. Among the injured was Anatoliy Shovkun, who ended up losing his leg, but survived.
Serhiyev Lysyuk’s leg was amputated in intensive care at the Dnipro hospital. Doctors fought for the soldier’s life for more than two weeks. He died on November 22 in a hospital in Kyiv.
While in the army, Serhiy had sports plans – after the Ukrainian victory, he was going to go to the world championship for the last time and risk his sports career. However, these plans were crossed out by katsaps…
Tribute The soldier was buried at the Yatsevo cemetery in Chernihiv.
Serhiy Lysyuk was posthumously awarded the Order “For Courage” III degree.
To perpetuate Serhiy’s memory, his wife registered a petition on the website of the President of Ukraine with a request to posthumously confer the title of Hero of Ukraine on the titled kickboxer. She collected the required 25,000 signatures.
