On Saturday, Akseli Saurama and Jaakko Haanpää celebrated the world championship.
Akseli Saurama aired his world championship. Petteri Maunu / Finnish Kickboxing Association
Finnish athletes grabbed medals at the World Kickboxing Championships in Portugal.
In total, Finnish athletes won three world championships, one World Championship silver and five World Championship bronze medals.
They considered themselves world champions Jaakko Haanpää (FC-81 kg), Axis Saurama (FC-71 kg) and Tatu Maunu (FC -63.5 kg). Haanpää’s and Saurama’s gold medals were secured in Saturday’s finals.
The three world champions competed in the full contact series, where kicks below the waist are not allowed. In K1 matches, unlike other match formats, you can also kick with the knee to the body and head, use a turning punch and aim low kicks at any part of the leg, while in Lowkick matches you can only aim low kicks at the thighs.
The World Cup silver was achieved Jennika Vainio (K1 +70 kg) and World Championship bronze Alireza Aholami (K1 -57 kg), Lauri Suomela K1 -67 kg), Nora Al-Saffu (K1 -52 kg), Mari Hankilanoja (K1 -65 kg) and Viljami Peltonen (FC -86 kg).
Finland participated in the World Championships with a historically large team of 16 athletes. A total of 1,431 fighters from 77 countries participated in the games organized in Albufeira, Portugal, according to the release of the Finnish Kickboxing Association.