Katja Körkkö is a world champion in a special sport.
Katja Körkkö shaped five overlapping pizza doughs in record time. Home pizza
You have to have a lot of passion to be able to practice, practice and practice.
Iiläinen Kotipizza entrepreneur Katja Körkkö won the world championship at the end of March in a sport where few compete at the top of the world. Körkkö is the world’s fastest pizza crust maker.
The World Pizza Games held in the USA were Körkön and the coach Heikki Sikström the sixth joint games. Kotipizza’s quality and product safety manager Sikström sums up Körkö’s competitive characteristic in one word: competitive spirit.
– Katja has a huge competitive spirit, which she can unleash on the competition stage. He wants to succeed, Sikström praises.
Already last year, Körkkö won gold in the pizza base category, but the hunger for competition is still strong. Körkkö reminds that there is still room for improvement in many parts of the competition.
The competition is also a social event. Although the competition performance is done properly and seriously, the competitors are already good friends. Over the years, pizza connoisseurs from around the world have formed friendships. In competitions, they encourage each other, even though there is no mercy on stage.
Körkkö describes that the community is like a small family that meets once a year. Community spirit and positive energy are important to Katja.
– I always pack a backpack full of spiritual treasure from there, the likes of which cannot be found here. It lasts the whole year until the next time I get to charge it there.
Körkö already has 16 years of experience as a pizza entrepreneur. According to him, competing is a good counterbalance to work.
The pizza dough for competitions differs from normal dough, so Körkkö and Sikström made the training dough separately. Adobe Stock / AOP
– As an entrepreneur, I do everyday restaurant life for others – customers and employees. My self is easily left in the background. Competing is my own personal thing. When I’ve learned Hessu’s teachings, I’ve started to improve enormously. It has motivated me and is useful at work, says Körkkö.
Körkkö describes his coach as the best possible. Körkkö appreciates getting an honest answer from Sikström about what went right and what went wrong.
– He knows what he’s talking about. Rarely do you get to experience something like this, that you get to spend many years under the master’s teachings.
Körkkö practices baking techniques and strength training throughout the year. In addition, he studies doughs and their properties at different temperatures.
Sikström laughs that Körkkö doesn’t need to be shepherded. He’s definitely working out. Körkkö says that in the early days of coaching, he was so excited about it that he took home pizza dough and practiced at night.
Körkkö no longer only practices flawless performances, but focuses on correcting mistakes. He began to think about what is the most difficult in competition performance and at what point does freezing occur. He understood that freezing comes when there is a big and surprising mistake in the race.
Because of this, Körkkö practices error situations thousands of times in order to know how to react to them quickly and efficiently in competition.
Heikki Sikström has participated in Pizza Expo since the early 1990s. Katja Körkkö thanks her coach’s professionalism. Home pizza
The floor of the competition stage is full of flour and therefore slippery, so Sikström urged Körkkö to take off his shoes. If the competitor’s attention is on maintaining balance throughout the performance, seconds are lost. That didn’t happen. A race performance of 36 seconds brought Körkö a gold medal. The silver medalist was eight seconds slower than him.
Körkö’s performance has also attracted attention more widely. The video published on Iin Kotipizza’s Facebook about his competition has collected more than a million views. 80 percent of the views have come from outside Finland.
According to Sikström’s assessment, Körkö’s performance shows the effect of the previous unsuccessful competition. He oozes anger and guts.
– You can’t get that by training. That is Katja’s competitive strength.
According to Sikström, success in the pizza competition is proof that with passion, perseverance and the right training, you can achieve anything.
Even though success has come, Körkkö is not going to stop.
– The competition stage is such that it will never be finished there. You can never develop so well that you get a completely clean performance, he says.
The constant desire to develop and surpass oneself keeps Körkö enthusiastic year after year.
What competition?
Pizza Expo is the world’s largest pizza event.
It has been organized in the United States for more than 40 years.
There have been competitions for about 30 years.
The event includes fairs, lectures and competitions.
It is aimed especially at individual entrepreneurs, offering new ideas and networking opportunities.
Competitors pay the participation fee.