Next Round: A Young Athlete's Journey to Gold

by John Spray

Arthur Biyarslanov’s journey to competitive boxing has not been easy. As a small child he fled Chechnya with his family, dodging bullets and rocket fire and fording a freezing river. As a young Muslim refugee he faced hardships and hostility in his new homes in Azerbaijan and Toronto. Soccer became his refuge, and he learned two languages by playing the game with his new friends. In Toronto, he joined a league and quickly became their star player. A broken leg left him weakened and he turned to boxing to keep his strength up. Soon it became his new love. After many hours of hard work, he started to win his bouts. And by the age of twenty the “Chechen Wolf” was a champion amateur boxer, winning gold for Canada, his new homeland, at the 2015 Pan Am Games. That medal earned him a shot at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro―the next round for this talented boxer and determined survivor.

Genres: Nonfiction

112 pages, Hardcover

First published July 15, 2016

Reviews

[Kelly]

This is an excellent example of a compelling story, but written pretty abysmally. The story of the Chechan Wolf follows young Canadian boxing champion Arthur Biyarslanov. It begins with his family becoming refugees from Chechnya and how Arthur developed skills and a passion for soccer. This takes up roughly 7 chapters of the book. Then onto chapter 8 or so, we finally see that Arthur and his family immigrate to Canada; he's still super into soccer. And then in chapter 9, we discover Arthur is starting to box and until the end of chapter 12, we forget all about his family story and focus 100% on the boxing career. For a book about his journey as a boxer -- and the title isn't even representative of the book, since it ends on a note that "maybe he'll do well in the 2016 Olympics!" -- that only about 15 pages are about boxing is pretty disappointing. Likewise, the parts that were not about his boxing were far more interesting and compelling. It's a refugee story that's contemporary and important but then we lose all of that meat when boxing appears.

Additionally, the images selected in this book at times make zero sense. Arthur and his family moved to Toronto in the early 2000s, but the images of Toronto, which are stock images, are from "circa 1990." I'm not sure the point of having the date there when it's possible that there are stock images of the cityscape from when the family lived there.

The ending is lackluster and boring, with no reason for me as a reader to want to learn more about the career of this boxer. And I found his life to be interesting, too.

Also worth noting: the backmatter makes no sense. A glossary of soccer and boxing terms is kind of pointless when none of those terms show up anywhere in the book. Why was that thrown in there, other than to say there's backmatter? A useful selection of backmatter would have been historical context for the situation in Chechnya, about the sort of immigration policies Canada implemented (which led to those huge high rise complexes filled with immigrants in Toronto that Spray spends time talking about), and perhaps some maps of, say, Toronto's neighborhoods, which played a big part in the textual narrative.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diversity, hardship, fear, integrity and triumph are brought to attention within this awe-inspiring book. If you take the challenge and read this book, you will go on a journey with Arthur and see just how much time and effort were spent trekking through unimaginable hardship, working toward conquering his fears and becoming the champion he is today.

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