The Finnish boxing sensation of the year Pihla Kaivo-oja strikes this week in the final competition of the season in Sheffield.
Finished fifth at the Paris Olympics Pihla Kaivo-oja won his opening bout in the World Boxing Cup against a Brazilian opponent. It is a boxing tournament that serves as the most important tournament of the year for the new International Boxing Association.
Kaivo-oja won again Radija Da Gamanwho visited the Tammer tournament in the fall. At that time, the Brazilian beat Finland Laura Myllymäki and Norway Ahadi Lukungunbut couldn’t find the ingredients to defeat Kaivo-oja.
Now in Sheffield, the match was again a sample of the Finn’s style. Kaivo-oja won the match 5–0 in the 50-kilogram category, winning some of the sets clearly 10–8 in the judges’ scores.
– Today was a familiar opponent. I expected him to have offered some kind of surprise. Pihla kept the distance nicely on the front straight and legs, and Brass’s attempts did not cause any problems, coach Maarit Teuronen explained in the announcement.
Thursday’s quarter-finals will be against China Guanxia Xiong. The opponent is unknown to Finns, and not much background information can be found about him. According to the coach, the situation is even desirable.
– At this point, it’s really good to be able to face new opponents and gain experience in matches where the opponent is an opponent we don’t know from before.
As many as seven of the 12 participants in the Kaivo-oja series come from Asia. In addition to Kaivo-oja, the Finnish women’s 66-kilo kicker will participate in the tournament Krista Kovalainen and the winner of the Tammer tournament in men’s 63.5 kg Ismail Umar.