Reima Virtanen

Reima Valdemar Virtanen ( born November 5, 1947 in Kemi, Lapland ) is a former Finnish amateur boxer at middleweight.

Reima Virtanen started in 1959 with the sport of boxing and was in the years 1969, 1971 and 1972, Finnish champion at middleweight. In these three years, he was also elected to Finland's Boxer of the Year. In 1969 he was elected best athlete of Lapland. In the years 1970 and 1972, he also won the Nordic Championships.

In 1969 he started at the 18th European Championships in Bucharest and won the bronze medal in the middleweight division. He defeated in the quarterfinals and the British champion Dave Wallington. In the semifinals, he finally succumbed to the Yugoslav champion Mate Parlov (Olympic Champion 1972, World Champion 1974) on points.

In the 19th European Championship 1971 held in Madrid, he again won the bronze medal in the middleweight division. He defeated in the preliminary rounds the multiple German champion Ewald Jarmer and the Scot Daniel McCafferty, as well as in the quarterfinals later pro - European Champion Rudy Koopmans from the Netherlands. In the semifinals, he lost this time the Romanians Alec Năstac ( Vice World Champion 1974, 3rd Olympia 1976).

His biggest success Virtanen at the 20th Summer Olympic Games in Munich in 1972. He started in the middleweight division and won the preliminary round bout with a 3-2 points victory against Titus Simba of Tanzania, as well as the quarter-finals by Ko in the third round against Poland Witold Stachurski. In the semifinals, he defeated Prince Amartey from Ghana 3-2 in the final to the Russians before he Vyacheslav Lemeshev by Ko subject and thus won the silver medal. He thus became the first and only Finnish medalists this weight class in Olympic history and by Sten Suvio (Gold welterweight 1936) and Pentti Hämäläinen (gold in bantamweight 1952), the third most successful Olympic boxers of Finnish history.

Then he resigned at the age of 25 years from active boxing. He played in his career about 200 fights, of which around 30 in international tournaments.

676908
de