Johan Linde (born 27 June 1983 in Adelaide, South Australia) is an Australian amateur boxer of Estonian descent. He represented Australia at the 2012 London Olympic Games in the super heavyweight division and was Australian team captain at the 2013 World Amateur Boxing Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

He is an economist and works as a policy advisor for the NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, and is also a director of Boxing Australia.

Boxing career

Linde started boxing in 2001 and was crowned South Australian heavyweight (91:kg) champion in 2003 and 2004. However, he gave up boxing to pursue tertiary studies in 2005, where he completed two bachelor's degrees (economics and accounting) at the University of Adelaide.

In 2009, Linde returned to the boxing gym and fought compe*ively for the first time in six years in 2010, moving up to the super heavyweight division (+91:kg). Linde went on to win the 2012 Australian and regional 2012 Oceania *les to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics Games, beating the highly rated Tongan Junior Fa in the final, who in turn had beaten Joseph Parker in the semi-final. This was his first time Linde had represented Australia at an international tournament.

Interview after Olympic qualification.

In the lead up to the London Olympic Games, Linde fought Joseph Parker in the 2012 Belgrade Winner final, narrowly losing on a countback. One week later, Linde suffered a TKO against Anthony Joshua at the 2012 A. Socikas Tournament in Lithuania, the first stoppage in his career.

Linde lost in the round of 16 at the London Olympics to Chinese super heavyweight Zhilei Zhang, who was the silver medallist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the same weight division.After reaching the world level in amateur boxing, Linde wasn't able to penetrate into the top of the amateur ranks, losing his first fight to Uzbekistan at the 2013 World Boxing Championships in Kazakhstan and only winning a bronze medal at the 2014 Australian *les, losing to Joseph Goodall in the semi-final.

Linde retired from compe*ive boxing in 2014 to resume his career in finance and is now actively involved in helping boxers with both training and promotion. He is also a director of Boxing Australia, chairman of the Boxing Australia Athletes Commission and National Federation representative for boxing with the Australian Olympic Committee.

Boxing highlights

8x Australian caps including 2012 London Olympic Games and 2013 World Amateur Boxing Championships.

1x Oceania Champion (2012)

1x Australian Champion (2012)

2x Australian *les Silver medal (2003, 2013)

1x Australian *les Bronze medal (2014)

6x South Australian Champion (2003, 2004, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)

References