Martti Puumalainen, who competes in Finnish judo, in the heavyweight division, has achieved gold in the Masters competition of the sport, which is the hardest sport event right after the World Championships.
He is 16th in the heavyweight world ranking and 11th in the Olympic ranking Martti Puumalainen with a dazzling gold medal at the Masters competition in Hungary, practically sealed his place at next year’s Olympics in Paris.
In the Hungarian Masters final, the world number one, Tajikistan Temur Rakhimov succumbed to the sensationally caught Puumalai with a wazar.
– I had lost three times to Rakhimov, the fourth time I didn’t want to lose to him anymore, Puumalainen elaborated in the IJF international gold interview.
The Finnish surprise trains at the capital’s sports academy in Urhea. He shared the praise of the head coach of the national team Rok for Draksic.
– He has a big influence on the whole of Finnish judo. Rok has stressed that only hard training will bring results. I already know that tomorrow we will go hard on the tatami again, Puumalainen laughed.
The Finn won all five of his fights during the day. The Romanians fell first Vladut Simionescu and a former Russian representing the United Arab Emirates Magomedomar Magomedomarov. In the pool final, Puumalainen defeated Georgia Gela Zaalishvili with ippon.
In the semi-finals, Puumalainen showed the locker place with a wazari to the fourth in the world ranking, Japan Tatsuru to Saito, who only a few years ago weighed around 170 kilos. In Hungary, the Japanese’s competition weight hovered closer to 140 kilograms.
Only the top 32 in the world ranking get an invitation to Judo’s prestigious Masters. You get the second most Olympic and world ranking points from the tournament right after the World Championships.
The Finnish judoka has not won at the World Championship level for 42 years. Juha “Pupu” Salonen competed in the over 95-kilogram category for World Championship bronze in 1981.
No Finn had previously won the Masters before Puumalainen’s feat.
The story will be completed later.