Leonard Pijetraj

[Artani]

[IMG]********free-zg.t-com.hr/klopica/images/pijetraj_1.jpg[/IMG]

Leonard Pijetraj

Leonard Pijetraj born on November 23, 1965 in Zagreb. The involvement in sports started when he was 10 years old. First thirteen years he trained Tae-kwon-do achieving noticeable results. Several times he was Croatian Champion and Champion of the former Yugoslavia. In 1984 he won bronze medal (Third Place) at the World Championships in Glasgow, Scotland and at the 1984 European Championships in Budapest, Hungary Team Gold Medal (First Place) and an individual Bronze Medal (Third Place). He started kickboxing in 1989 and soon thereafter he became the amateur and later professional champion of former Yugoslavia. At the same time (in 1989) I joined a boxing club. Boxing was a sport that I always wanted to participate in, however in my younger days there were no boxing clubs near where I lived, so instead and he chose the nearest club that practiced combat sports. Shortly afterwards he started putting the idea of forming my own club into reality. At first he was involved in boxing both as a fighter and as a trainer, but after a couple of fights he had to choose between the two. It was almost impossible to have good results as a coach and a fighter. He chose coaching, as it was something he always had inclinations towards. At a young age he started gaining experiences as a trainer. His trainer at the time would often ask me to arrive early or stay late after my training sessions so that I could coach other competitors, often much older than I. First significant results of my boxing club "LEONARDO BOXING GYM" were achieved in 1994. Of the three competitors at the Croatian National Championships, two became Champions (Alen Bodor as a lightweight and Branko Šobot as a junior middleweight). Šobot was also declared the best Croatian boxer overall. Next year in Pula, at the 1995 Croatian Championships, of the six competitors from "LEONARDO BOXING GYM", three became National Champions (Alen Bodor in the Lightweight category, Stjepan Božić in the Middleweight and Danijel Kalanj in the Heavyweight category). The award for the overall best boxer of the Croatian National Championships went to Stjepan Božić again from my club thus making "LEONARDO BOXING GYM" the most successful Croatian boxing club. With the help of Željko Golub (former successful amateur boxer and manager) we started training both amateur and professional boxers. His first professional boxer was Željko Mavrović 27-1 (22 KOs, his only defeat to Lennox Lewis in 12 rounds - 199. Mavrovic trained at the “LEONARDO BOXING GYM” for 15 months. Branko Šobot was with our club for 5 years (two as an amateur and three years as a professional) achieving many significant results; 6 times International Champion of Germany; in 1996 he became the Intercontinental Middleweight Champion of the International Boxing Federation (IBF). He fought for the European and World title of the World Boxing Organization (WBO), but he lost both matches. Another of my boxers, Vedran Akrap, turned professional - much too early in my opinion. He won his first two professional fights, but lost the third on points, when fighting for the International Championship of Germany. The boxing club "LEONARDO" soon became known outside Croatia. Many foreign boxers came to my club, which is unique in the history of Croatian boxing. We have had three German professional boxers; Charlie Graff, Firat Arslan and Willi Fischer. Those three boxers fought in more than thirty professional fights under my guidance with only one defeat, which shows that their careers were very successful while they were with the "LEONARDO BOXING GYM". One of the most successful fighters we had at "LEONARDO" was English boxer Michele Aboro, who is the European Champion, and the first challenger for titles on all world-ranking lists. Thus in only nine years since its founding, "LEONARDO BOXING GYM" had several Champions and many significant results. I want to thank all the people who contributed to the club's founding and success: my family, my wife Sanja, Braco Đurić, Željko Golub and many other friends. I also want to thank all the sponsors that were supporting us, are supporting us at the moment and will be supporting the club, the boxers and me in the future. As a trainer, he thank all of his boxers for the confidence they had in him.

[Artani]

[IMG]********free-zg.t-com.hr/klopica/slike/bg_promoter_4.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]********free-zg.t-com.hr/klopica/slike_preskar/preskar_dk_leo.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]********free-zg.t-com.hr/klopica/slike_preskar/preskar_ring.jpg[/IMG]

[unitas]

i remember him from the sobot vs veit fight.

he was sobots trainer i think.

[Artani]

Originally Posted by unitas

i remember him from the sobot vs veit fight.

he was sobots trainer i think.

Yes , he was Sobots trainer .

Here is one pick of Fisher with Pijetraj and Sobot !

[IMG]********free-zg.t-com.hr/klopica/slike/2005_leo_4.jpg[/IMG]

[unitas]

Originally Posted by Artani

Yes , he was Sobots trainer .

Here is one pick of Fisher with Pijetraj and Sobot !

[IMG]********free-zg.t-com.hr/klopica/slike/2005_leo_4.jpg[/IMG]

what is petraj doing now??? is he working for a german boxing company??

[unitas]

and before i forget: cool pics!!!

[albaneze]

Nice Infos Artani.

Thanks a lot

Cheers

[Artani]

Originally Posted by unitas

what is petraj doing now??? is he working for a german boxing company??

Pijetraj have his team in the capital city of Croatia - Zagreb . He is training heavyweight prospect Mario Preskar.

You can watch his web-site [URL="***********.leonardogym.com"]***.leonardogym.com[/URL]

[Artani]

Originally Posted by albaneze

Nice Infos Artani.

Thanks a lot

Cheers

Welcome back albaneze and injoy reading about our fighters.

[Toney]

I remember this guy from 2000 or 2001. He brought Mario Prescar and this other Croatian kid to Finland. Prescar lost to Robert Helenius. Leonard seemt to be a nice fellov.

[kentauros]

He was also Mirko Cro Cops (famous croatian K-1 & MMA fighter) trainer at the beginning of his K-1 career and Mike Bernardos (K-1) trainer at the end of his career

[Artani]

Originally Posted by Toney

I remember this guy from 2000 or 2001. He brought Mario Prescar and this other Croatian kid to Finland. Prescar lost to Robert Helenius. Leonard seemt to be a nice fellov.

Can Helenius recover his injury till January because some who coudent to get qualification for Peking 2008 have plus one chance.