Karjalan Kovin Athletes Profiles

Ladies and gentlemen! Here are the athlete profiles of the mighty bunch that is travelling to Lappeenranta tomorrow, Friday, to represent Basement in the Karjalan Kovin competition over the weekend!

Discalimer: some, or all, information found in these athlete profiles may be partially, or completely, made up, bogus, bullshit, or just plain wrong due to the editor’s incompetence in these things. Photo courtesy of the Basement Boogieman.


Name and age: Iina von Gruenewaldt

CF years: allmost 6 months
Background (sports): Gymnastics as a child (editor’s note: not so many years ago)
Crossfit competitions and results: This is my first one!
Biggest goat/weakness: Gymnastics’ strength, especially upper body.
What are you going to be when you grow up? A firefighter just lite Toffe, Eppu, Arttu and Robin!
Favorite workout and score (+ why is it your favorite?): Grace 3:00 min, Isabel. Those are my favorite workouts beacuase I’m good with a heavy bar and have good OLY technique.
How important is fashion in CF? I think comfortable clothes are more important than fashionable ones.
What are your expectations for the Karjalan Kovin competition?: To get experience!
Describe your workout routine and how you have been preparing for the competition: The normal Beastprogramming by Björn. In my competition preparations I have focused on doing much more metcons and practicing gymnastics technique, for example bar muscle-ups.
Are you going to take your shirt off in Karjalan Kovin? Unfortunately it is not allowed!
How much have you gained weight since starting training with the Beasts? 4kg!
Coach Björn’s comment on Iina: Iina is our youngest member but she has showed extremely nice potential for this sport. Sporting a 62,5 kg snatch and being a complete Beast at rowing (giving some male Beasts a run for their money on longer rows). Iina also does multiple reps OHS with 75kg. She is kind of the little sister in the beast group: allways getting teased but most surely will be protected if needed.


Name and age: Tanja Pajunen, 27

Practicing getting better at strength
– the face of a true warrior!

CF years: Allmost 2 years
Background (sports): gymnastics and ringette
Crossfit competitions and results: None so far!
Biggest goat/weakness: Strength – I’m too much of a mouse!
What are you going to be when you grow up? Really big!
Favorite workout and score (+ why is it your favorite?): Jackie 7:53. Because I’m good at it.
How important is fashion in CF? It’s all about fashion 😉
What are your expectations for the Karjalan Kovin competition?: To finish my very first competition alive!
Describe your workout routine and how you have been preparing for the competition: The Beastprogramming by Björn. I went to Croatia for a week and trained while I was there on holiday.
Are you going to take your shirt off in Karjalan Kovin? If Justus promises NOT to take off his!
How much have you gained weight since starting training with the Beasts? None – I’m still a mouse!
Coach Björn’s comment on Tanja: Tanja’s strength is in her diversity, and she is not as weak as she thinks! Though there’s allways room for improvement, and I think that we will see good results if we give her some time.

Name and age: Justus Pöysti, 28
CF years:  4 years
Background (sports): Icehockey
Crossfit competitions and results:  Winter War 2013, Karjalan Kovin 2014, and Winter War 2015 19th place, the other comps I don’t remember.
Biggest goat/weakness: My nerves. I tend to lose my shit sometimes.
What are you going to be when you grow up? Big.
Favorite workout and score (+ why is it your favorite?): Assault bike ”all-out” Tabata. Score: ”Near death”-experience.
How important is fashion in CF? The important thing is to look good, not such much the performance.
What are your expectations for the Karjalan Kovin competition?:  I expect to beat Aleksi.
Describe your workout routine and how you have been preparing for the competition: I do mostly beastprogramming and then add my own stuff. My final competition preparations I did in the Norwegian fjords on a fishing trip. Fishing with my bare hands, of course.
Are you going to take your shirt off in Karjalan Kovin? If the crowd demands that I do!
How much have you gained weight since starting training with the Beasts? I’ve allways been a mouse!
Coach Björn’s comment on Justus: Justus is an experienced CF athlete and his biggest strength is his even performances over all the fields. I looked back at the Winter War 2015 statistics and Justus beat me in several workouts and statistically he had the smallest variance (of the Basement Beasts) when looking at placings in the workouts. Justus is very motivated and sometimes I can find him at the box during odd hours doing his own killer workout or working on a weakness.


Name and age: Robin Hendry, 29
CF years: 6
Background (sports): football
Crossfit competitions and results: 0
Biggest goat/weakness: SQUATS
What are you going to be when you grow up? Smart, sexy, strong.
Favorite workout and score (+ why is it your favorite?): Fran 3:20 – it’s short enough.
How important is fashion in CF? Very.
What are your expectations for the Karjalan Kovin competition?: Don’t be last! To have a good time 🙂
Describe your workout routine and how you have been preparing for the competition: Training constantly varied stuff 2x/week. I’m still recovering from an achille’s tendon rupture from last summer….
Are you going to take your shirt off in Karjalan Kovin? FUCK YES!
How much have you gained weight since starting training with the Beasts? No comment.
Coach Björn’s comment on Robin: Robin has a long background of training hard. He’s also very gifted in the shoulder press and he has a so good physical base that even eith smaller amounts of training he can qualify for much every competition in Finland. It will be nice to how nmuch he can develop when he can get back to proper training after getting his achille’s tendon sorted out.

Name and age: Charlie Hodge, 28
CF years: 3
Background (sports):
I have grown up playing many sports, football has been the biggest one for me but I have also played a lot of cricket and have spent many years swimming. Sports have been a passion from a young age and a huge part of my life.
CF comps and results:
Tribal Clash August 2013 – Team
Unbroken October 2014 – Tied 12th place
Biggest goat/weakness:
Strength has been my biggest weakness for a while but I have worked hard to try and rectify it. I also dislike short heavy metcons.
What are you going to be when you grow up?
Fat and happy.
Favorite workout and score (+ why is it your favorite?):
Open workout 15.3 ( 14 Min AMRAP 7 MU, 50 Wall Balls & 100 DU’S) Got 472 reps and placed 338th in Europe. The movements are some of my favourites and it’s my highest ever open placing.
How important is fashion in CrossFit? If you are looking good you are not trying hard enough.
Expectations for KK comp: I expect it to be very tough but lots of fun. Hoping for a top 10 finish.
Describe your workout routine/ How have you been preparing for the competition? I have been following The Training Plan, I do whatever Jami tells me to do. My main focus is still to get strong and target my weaknesses.
How much have you gained weight since you started training with the beasts? I have gained 10 KG’s in 3 years of CrossFit.
Are you going to take your shirt off in KK? Come to watch and find out.
Coach Björn’s comment on Charlie: Charlie’s strength is his diversity and he will benefit a lot from just getting stronger in every way. I think he has a relatively good conditioning and now he just needs some more horsepower to that engine.

Name and age: Aleksi Vihonen, 28

CF years: 5 years of 100% Crossfit
Background (sports):
Crossfit competitions and results: Winter War 2015 OLY event win (strongest CF athlete in Finland), 2012 Pori competition 3rd place.
Biggest goat/weakness: none.
What are you going to be when you grow up? Bigger, stronger, faster.
Favorite workout and score (+ why is it your favorite?): All of them. I have done Isabel in 1:29min.
How important is fashion in CF? Biceps is much importanter.
What are your expectations for the Karjalan Kovin competition?: Event win.
Describe your workout routine and how you have been preparing for the competition: Beastprogramming. No special prep. 250kg deadlift. Much running.
Are you going to take your shirt off in Karjalan Kovin? Yes.
How much have you gained weight since starting training with the Beasts? 0kg.
Coach Björn’s comment on Aleksi: He is quite strong but needs to work on his weaknesses like running and bodyweight movements (which he has worked on a lot). Since starting at Basement allmost a year ago lakesi has made big progressions in both strength and conditioning. He is starting to look more like an athlete and less like the chubby boy he is 😉

Hopefully we will see an even bigger Basement crowd at the KK than last year! So: this weekend. Lappeenranta. Be there.

– Coach Björn and the Basement Beasts