Sep 23, 2026 · 58 min · 15 segments
Finland’s powerhouse, Martti Puumalainen joins JudoPOD for a candid, funny and refreshingly honest conversation about life as a heavyweight judoka. Press play to learn some of his tricks of the trade…
Martti PuumalainenGuest
Robin WillinghamHost
Thea CowenHost
Yeah, there had a big change started in 2020 when... we centralised our system to Helsinki and one year later we opened, or not us, but the Olvik committee opened Olvik training centre and Jura was one of the sports there.
And so now, since then, the best athletes train together every day with the best coaching.
And also 2020, the federation hired Rock Traxitz and okay, I know a lot of people know that he's a big part of this and I feel that we in Finnish Judo we also had good athletes before but we were in a kind of a low point at that point and I what now I can say I feel that maybe we had lost the understanding what is the demand level of the elite judo and Rock came and he was not so long before that he was fighting in four years before he came he was in the Olympic games and former European champion, coached also European champion in Slovenia, Adrian Gombos.
So, you know, he had the present knowledge what is the demand level of international children now.
And these are the big factors and the But of course, not only this, but we had a good group of people who push each other.
Like, I would like to mention Lucas Saha, of course, you know, world medalist.
And also some others, but we have a very good team spirit with the guys that...
And maybe even more important, we are always there when somebody has maybe not their best period.
And especially because you're a bit of a smaller team, you seem very tight-knit and have that, I don't know, the motivation on top of that to kind of help each other grow, to be getting that attention and to grow the team.
Yeah, we know that, uh, like also, of course, also the, the funding is a lot about the medals.
Yeah, there had a big change started in 2020 when... we centralised our system to Helsinki and one year later we opened, or not us, but the Olvik committee opened Olvik training centre and Jura was one of the sports there.
And so now, since then, the best athletes train together every day with the best coaching.
And also 2020, the federation hired Rock Traxitz and okay, I know a lot of people know that he's a big part of this and I feel that we in Finnish Judo we also had good athletes before but we were in a kind of a low point at that point and I what now I can say I feel that maybe we had lost the understanding what is the demand level of the elite judo and Rock came and he was not so long before that he was fighting in four years before he came he was in the Olympic games and former European champion, coached also European champion in Slovenia, Adrian Gombos.
So, you know, he had the present knowledge what is the demand level of international children now.
And these are the big factors and the But of course, not only this, but we had a good group of people who push each other.
Like, I would like to mention Lucas Saha, of course, you know, world medalist.
And also some others, but we have a very good team spirit with the guys that...
And maybe even more important, we are always there when somebody has maybe not their best period.
And especially because you're a bit of a smaller team, you seem very tight-knit and have that, I don't know, the motivation on top of that to kind of help each other grow, to be getting that attention and to grow the team.
Yeah, we know that, uh, like also, of course, also the, the funding is a lot about the medals.
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