At last month’s GAMMA World Championships 2021, kit sponsor GUERRA launched an initiative to raise funds for the family of Ukrainian athlete Yegor Birkun, who died recently in the war in the Ukraine, by selling kits at a reduced price at the Sporthallen Zuid venue.
Birkun, who won silver at the GAMMA European Championships in Kyiv in November 2020, was scheduled to compete at the event in Amsterdam before losing his life defending the city of Mariupol.
The Global Association of Mixed Martial Arts (GAMMA) subsequently offered its support to the family on behalf of the entire MMA community by matching the funds raised by GUERRA. The money will be given to the family together with a letter signed by both organisations.
“GAMMA is really a family, and we are all saddened by the news of Yegor that we received just before the start of the World Championships,” said GAMMA President Alexander Engelhardt. “We are grateful to our partners GUERRA for launching this initiative and hope that this small token to the Birkun family can help them in some way in the future. The MMA community will forever keep Yegor and his family in our hearts and thoughts.”
A video on YouTube about Yegor and the fundraising can be viewed here.
As a service to our readers, Around the Rings will provide verbatim texts of selected press releases issued by Olympic-related organizations, federations, businesses and sponsors.
These press releases appear as sent to Around the Rings and are not edited for spelling, grammar or punctuation.
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