Draft:Pasi Paavisto

Pasi Paavisto is a Finnish powerlifter and former strongman, born in Harjavalta in 1967. He measures 201 cm tall and weighs around 130-140 kg. Paavisto has won several championships in junior powerlifting and also finished 2nd in Finnish Championships in 1990 in the +125 kg series.

After his powerlifting career he has participated, among others, in Finland's Strongest Man -competitions  and several other domestic and international strength athletics competitions, such as Highland Games. He still holds the Finnish record for Weight for Height, thrown in the Netherlands. From the early days of his Strongman career, he competed with legends like Jon Pall Sigmarsson, Jamie Reeves and Riku Kiri.



From 1993 to 1994 Paavisto was also starring in the Finnish TV version of Gladiators, called Gladiaattorit in Finnish, where his role name was Retu. As Paavisto was the largest of the male gladiators, he was at his best in events such as Duel and Gauntlet. One of his most memorable moments in Gladiators was when he knocked a Contender off the Duel platform in less than 1 second. The history of the strange role name (compared to such as the Lightning, the Viking etc.) was explained in a Finnish media interview, where he explains how he joined the crew on second day of filming, when all the superhero names were already taken. Director Renny Harlin asked him what he would want to be called, and as he couldn't come up with anything, and The Flintstones had just appeared in movie theaters, Harlin decided to name him Retu, which is Fred Flintstone's Finnish first name.

Pasi Paavisto has had his own practice since 2002, as a masseur and osteopathic therapist in his home town Harjavalta.

Pasi Paavisto obviously still goes to the gym for strength training and occasionally publishes training videos, like "Deadlift RAW 320 kg" and "Biceps curl 100 kg for 10 reps" on his YouTube-channel.

Some strongman competition videos of Paavisto have also been published on a Finnish website called Woimalaitos.

Sources
 * Finnish Power Grand Prix 1991, Pasi Paavisto in TOP4 with the legendary Jon Pall Sigmarsson, Riku Kiri and Jamie Reeves
 * Eurosport recording on the World's Strongest Team competition in Hungary year 2000, which Pasi won with Janne Virtanen
 * IFSA Finland's Strongest Man 2001
 * Strongman Archives of Pasi Paavisto
 * Den Helder EK Highland Games recording from 2002 with Pasi Paavisto finishing 5th
 * David Horne's list of Strongman contests
 * The Finnish Broadcasting Corporation's (YLE) feature on him in 2017
 * Finnish Ilta-Sanomat newspaper interview from 2018 of Pasi Paavisto on the late Tony Halme, his TV-Gladiator colleague
 * Satakunnan Kansa newspaper feature on Pasi Paavisto in 2022