The arrest of Antonio Tejado for his alleged involvement in the robbery with violence, last August, at his aunt’s home Maria del Monte and his wife, the journalist Inmaculada Casal, has not only caught the singer’s entourage by surprise, but also the little one Macarena gym related to one of the main detainees for this crime, known as ‘the Russian’.
Last Friday morning, the Civil Guard broke into this well-known establishment, highly respected in the world of boxing. Its owner, of Russian nationality, is recognized for training young people from the neighborhood and boxers of all nationalities, turning this boxing enclave in the heart of Seville into a small ‘UN’, with students of Filipino, Colombian, Ukrainian or Georgian origin, among others.
On Friday morning, who They were trained in ‘the family’as this gym was known in the world, did not understand why the Civil Guard showed up at the establishment, asking them to take their belongings and leave, while the street where the gym is located remained blocked by the agents, preventing the movement. passage to pedestrians.
This gym is not only known for its successes in the field of sports – having Andalusian and Spanish championships in its track record – but for the social work undertaken by its owner. The father of the now detained man has headed different causes to help his studentsin addition to preventing the young people of their gym stray down the wrong path, hence the surprise of some users of the establishment at seeing their own son involved in an accusation of such magnitude.
From starting a campaign to treat the rare disease of one of its youngest boxers to getting more than one off drugs. “Here we are a family, and the family helps each other”the owner of this establishment constantly repeated every time he was asked about some of these causes.
Young people with few resources did not pay, the gym covered the expenses of the competitions and their transportation, and many families even went to its owner, a former boxer in his former country, Russia, to help them when their son had fallen in with bad company. .
He ‘Russian’ was actively part of this ‘family’ until an injury kept him away, not only from the ring, but from the gym. In September 2022, in a fight held in Marbella, the now arrested man ended up with a fractured jaw. Since then, he has not fought again, nor was it common to see him in gym training.
From that date on, he did not frequent the establishment, except for occasional visits and occasional training, very different from the rest of his family. Both his father and her brother were in charge of carrying out the group classes and private training, which many choose to stay in shape.
This was the case of Antonio Tejado, who frequented this gym, confessing, in a television report, that they had helped him overcome his addictions and thus recover his physical form. He is not the only well-known face who goes to this gym, since among its subscribers, in addition to people from the neighborhood, there are singers, dancers and some other influencerswho found in the ‘family’ the charm of a neighborhood gym where boxing is practiced.
Those who have treated this family cannot come out of their stupor when they learn what happened. For many it was a normal family, arriving in Spain from Russia almost 20 years ago, with the dream that boxing would not be a sport stigmatized or considered violent, and with the hope that Sevillein the future, could host an international test.