Boxer Pihla Kaivo-oja is looking for a boost for this year’s competition season in Colorado.
- Boxer Pihla Kaivo-oja’s main career goal is the 2028 Olympics.
- Vasuri was fifth in his series at the Paris Olympics.
- Iskijja does not knock out popular show matches, but reminds us of the nature of the sport.
Finland has a potential medal candidate at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. There are no busloads of them.
23-year-old and 165-centimeter boxer Pihla Kaivo-oja is one of them.
– Yes, the Los Angeles Olympics are indeed the main goal of my career in the future, it has been all along. Now they’re getting closer and it’s great. Two and a half years go by in a blur, Kaivo-oja says.
The 2024 Summer Games in Paris are still in the memory of many Finns. Mainly because Finland did not bring home a single medal from France.
Kaivo-oja was included in the clinkers. He finished fifth in the 50-kilogram category.
International attacks
The most important quality of a boxer is mental toughness. That is what Pihla Kaivo-oja plans to grow in the future. Elle Laitila
The native of Tampere knows the qualities he needs to improve in order to be successful in Los Angeles.
– The biggest thing in this sport is mental strength. That’s what I’m trying and I’m going to grow. There are others, but they are known to coach Maarit Teuronen.
How do you increase mental toughness?
– Of course, it comes from playing around in competitions and high-level tournaments, going to hard international camps to train. It comes as an automatic by-product. And it has already come.
Attack the Chinese
Pihla Kaivo-oja heads to Colorado Springs at the end of January to train. Elle Laitila
The native of Tampere will soon go to the next high-class international camp. At the end of January, the destination is Colorado Springs.
– I am looking forward to that camp so much. I am waiting for those tough international opponents to push myself to the limit in sparring and other training. We will be there for two weeks.
There are also new opponents coming up in Colorado.
– The Chinese athletes tickle me the most. They have such a style there, I haven’t really been able to shoot with them, so I’m really looking forward to it.
– The goal is to challenge myself there in every area, when I get to train with the best.
European Championships under binoculars
Pihla Kaivo-Oja met Turkey’s Buse Naz in the quarterfinals of the Paris Olympics. PDO
At the same camp, there are plenty of hard hitters.
– There will be two teams from the United States, a Chinese team and, according to current information, the British and a team from Kazakhstan. We will get a good decision for the training season there, and after that the competition season will start, says the Boxing Federation’s Olympic coach Teuronen.
After the camp in Colorado, Kaivo-oja opens its competition season in February.
The main goal of the calendar year is the European Championship in Bulgaria in the fall.
Show matches
Kaivo-oja does not directly knock out the popular celebrity match nights in Finland today. Ex-hockey player Jere Karalahti, social media influencer have entered the ring, among others Stagala and ex-offender Mika “Immu” Ilmén.
However, you should get into the ring in the right environment.
– It’s great that the sport interests and attracts people. Definitely go to the wrestling and boxing gyms to train every single one.
– And then why not fight. The fighting must then be done in the right environment and remember that you train first under the coach’s eye. However, it is a martial art, Kaivo-oja says.
Teuronen doesn’t want to comment more on entertainment matches.
– I haven’t followed them at all because I’m not interested. However, in my opinion, this is a sport that can be taken so seriously, just like many others, that it doesn’t get any better to go out and play with it.
The union is renewing
Pihla Kaivo-oja does not directly knock out show matches. Elle Laitila
The boxing association wants Olympic success in the future, and for that it is renewing its top boxing coaching system.
Kiikari has ring success in 2028 in Los Angeles and, in the longer term, at the Brisbane 2032 Olympics.
The association has made a new executive director Leena Paavolainen led by investments and it concentrates top boxing coaching and expert activities in three places: Pajulahti sports academy, Varala sports academy in Tampere and in Helsinki the Capital Region sports academy Urhea.