99 Problems, But an Ovulation Pill Ain't One

If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. It’s the City of Big Dreams. But Robert Helenius’ Big Dream doesn’t need him to spend more time than necessary in the metropolis known for targeting subway riders with ads that discourage manspreading in his pursuit of becoming the heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

In October 2022, Helenius faced former heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where the Nordic Nightmare ended up being knocked out in the final seconds of the first round by the Bronze Bomber. A year of preparation had gone wrong. Sooner rather than later, the taxi took him straight to the airport to fly back from eight and a half million people to thirty thousand on the Åland Islands.

Eight months later, Helenius stepped into the ring at Olavinlinna Castle, not far from the Russian border in Eastern Finland, in good spirits and form against another Finn with a warrior’s spirit: Mika Mielonen. The fight ended in the third round with a TKO in favor of Helenius.

One week later, Helenius fought another former heavyweight champion in front of 20,000 fans at the O2 Arena in London: Anthony Joshua.

Helenius dominated the fight until the seventh round when, due to a lack of conditioning and a few days of preparation, he took a hard right to the chin and fell to the canvas.

A few weeks later, the suspicion that Helenius had tested positive for a banned substance made headlines in Finland and around the world. While in reality everything was unclear, dirty rats behind the keyboard tried to claim that there was something else in his veins besides coffee, good whiskey and Viking blood.

Currently, according to anti-doping associations, he is not allowed to take up another fight until the results become clear. Helenius’ only fight, for now, is against himself.

“I thought about going into politics,” he told me a few days ago when we talked about his recently published autobiography written by Tuomas Kyrö: Nyrkki—Kehässä Robert Helenius; Fist—Robert Helenius In The Ring.

“But then I thought, with everything going on around me, it might not be a good idea,” he continued, eating a mushroom sandwich and sipping dark coffee.

Still, Helenius said he feels “pretty good,” even as he also faces a divorce that made headlines, too. A marriage of 17 years is over. “At least I feel like I’m alive,” said Helenius, 39.

Helenius’ autobiography, which stood on a gleaming, sturdy wooden table in the conference room at the publisher WSOY’s main office in the center of Helsinki, was a fair and funny read.

Kyrö, who became famous in 2010 with his novel Mielensäpahoittaja, The Man Who Gets Upset About Things, which was later made into a popular Finnish movie, found a certain synergy with the boxer.

During several visits to the Åland Islands between 2020 and 2023, where Helenius trains and lives, Kyrö sat on the brown sofa of the gym built in an old car repair shop in the capital Mariehamn and listened to the words that poured out not only from the boxer but also from his team: trainer Johan Lindström and manager Markus Sundman.

Kyrö also talked to Robert’s father Karl, which resulted in a true story of his adventurous childhood from sea to land and the birth of the fifth son who became the boxer. From the peaceful and sometimes not-so-peaceful surroundings of the small towns of Loviisa and Porvoo, his father introduced Robert to boxing in his early teens.

With Viking blood running through his veins, Helenius has knocked out former heavyweight champions. Throughout his career, he’s been a proud subject of voluntary testing for performance-enhancing drugs. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY

More than two hundred amateur fights later, Robert became a professional in Germany. After several victorious bouts and many injuries later, shit finally went sideways with the boxing promotional group, Sauerland. Dramatic events unfolded. Some of the things that happened behind the scenes are told publicly for the first time in this book.

The timing of Kyrö’s writing of the book is certainly well-placed for himself, Helenius and the reader: some of the biggest fights in Helenius’ career took place during the writing of the autobiography.

In Kyrö’s non-fiction account, New Yorkers know one thing about Finland: the then-Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who made headlines around the world for her partying habits.

This funny window into the American psyche is a recurring theme in the book. Kyrö is a craftsman of repeated interesting tidbits. The phrase that holds Helenius’s team together when the shit hits the fan, “Vitun, vitun, vittu,” is another good one, and when Robert’s father, Karl, gets angry: “Kallella menee hermo.“

Helenius has been boxing for over 20 years and plans to continue boxing. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY

Overall, Kyrö’s book is a funny, reconstructed work of events told from memory, but it also manages to capture some first-hand accounts of the action between major fights in international arenas.

But Helenius’ career is far from over.

“I would like to see myself in the ring again,” he told me, now holding a red smoothie in his hand.

But first he has to wait for the final results of the “positive” doping test and the subsequent decision as to when he could possibly fight again. Helenius called the process ” nerve-racking.” After all, he has been part of a voluntary doping testing program since he was 17.

“I remember one time when we were with the kids at an indoor adventure park on the Åland Islands and the testers from Germany had arrived on the island and told us that we had less than an hour to be available for a doping test,” Karl Helenius told me in an interview last year. “I ended up taking care of the kids, and the tests for performance-enhancing drugs were done in the back room of the amusement park.”

Helenius belts his opponent Mika Mielonen in Savonlinna, on August 5, 2023. Later he talks to reporter and photojournalist Tony Öhberg. Photograph: TONY ÖHBERG/FINLAND TODAY

Helenius’ manager, Markus Sundman, earlier confirmed to Finnish media that the drug clomiphene was said to be found in Helenius’ doping sample taken in London the day before the big fight.

The drug is used to treat breast cancer and infertility. There are reports that the drug has been used to treat poultry. In men, it’s known to increase testosterone levels. Weight lifting is known to do the same … naturally.

The book described what happened when the doping allegations surfaced in the media a few weeks after the fight:

“Robbe [Robert] calls his father. His voice betrays him, telling him that if he had wanted to use performance-enhancing drugs, he would have used real poison. They’re available in this sport, you don’t have to look far. But I didn’t take any damn chicken ovulation drugs!”