Rigondeaux fighting for his family

GUILLERMO Rigondeaux yesterday told of the pain and anguish of leaving his wife and young son behind him when he left Cuba to pursue a professional boxing career.

He had climbed to the pinnacle of amateur boxing, winning back-to-back world titles — the first of them in Belfast in 2001 — and two Olympic gold medals, before Corkman Gary Hyde took him out of his native Cuba.

Speaking through his interpreter, Ricardo DeCubas, he said it was one of the hardest things he ever had to do in his life.