Martti Puumalainen’s oxygen is flowing normally again, since the right medicines have been found for the asthma diagnosed in the spring.
Anu Karttunen,
Joel Holm
Paris Olympics on channels 26.7.–11.8. Go to the competition website here. You can find the entire program of the games here.
Judoka Martti Puumalainen will get to work in Paris on Friday. He has been satisfied with his preparation, even though the preparatory competitions went poorly. Puumalainen, who struggled with health problems in the spring, is now in full swing.
– In the spring after the World Championships, I was diagnosed with asthma. When the oxygen doesn’t flow, it won’t go in the match either, Puumalainen said and told that the diagnosis was a huge relief.
– It started to surprise, frighten and excite me a little, what is here. That it’s just not enough. He starts to doubt himself. The stone rolled away from my heart, and when you still notice that the drugs help, I got my confidence back.
Puumalainen’s last season was really successful. He won, among other things, European Championship gold and the prestigious Masters tournament. He believes that he is capable of similar success at the Paris Olympics, but does not want to get ahead of things.
– You just have to go every start and match at a time. I only have the first match in mind. Then at the end of the day we’ll see how it went in the end.
Puumalainen gets directly to the second round, i.e. to the top 16. He doesn’t single out any of his opponents, because he thinks each of them is tough. No one should be over- or underestimated, so there will definitely be tough twists and turns ahead.
– Hopefully as many as possible. I’m ready for anything.
The Puumalainen counts endurance, speed, strength and the fact that he is good at throwing as his strengths. The two-handed throw is indeed his number one technique, but Puumalainen assures that he has other weapons to knock down his opponents.
There are also “weaknesses” in the Finnish ace.
– It would be really nice to be bigger, but I’m just fine with myself, he laughed.