Linn Sandstrom: “There were times I didn’t want to go to training because people wanted to see me fail. That has driven me on through this injury.”

Linn Sandstrom: “There were times I didn’t want to go to training because people wanted to see me fail. That has driven me on through this injury.”

If world titles are won on resilience and sheer hard work, Linn Sandstrom would be a multi-time champion of the world many times over already. A life that started in Brazil very quickly moved to Sweden, and a life as an international table tennis began, and it then somehow moved to another hemisphere in the land down under. It was in Australia that Sandstrom found her calling in boxing.

It took time. A blank canvas. A rough diamond. Sandstrom had to overcome plenty of resentment from those who reside in the sport. She had to overcome some early setbacks. Sandstrom lost her early fights as an amateur. After her first year in the professional side of the sport, Sandstrom had an unflattering record of just one win in four fights. The signs were not good. But if the naysayers thought that that had been proved right, they would be greatly mistaken. Sandstrom proved she was a born fighter.

Sandstrom is driven like very few fighters are. Boxing is literally her life. “It’s just boxing in my life. That is all I do,” she told me last year. If Sandstrom could get away with fighting every single week. She would.

After a controversial points defeat to Natalie Hills at the end of 2021, Sandstrom went on a six-fight winning streak that earned her a world ranking and was on the brink of a world title shot when disaster struck a few months ago. A routine training session ended with Sandstrom completely tearing her Achilles tendon, and the prognosis was a 9-12 months recovery period. But Linn Sandstrom had other ideas.

“Everyone said we should have been resting, but we even did a video when I was training on one leg because, for me, not training is not an option. Even people in the gym, when I walked in on one leg they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Twelve weeks on, I am walking, and walking perfectly, and training perfectly,” Sandstrom told me a few weeks ago relaying her incredible almost miraculous recovery from an injury which was supposed to keep her out of action for up to a year.

“I am very single-minded. I have obviously gone through a lot in my past, and nothing stopped me even back then. There were times I didn’t want to go to training because people wanted to see me fail. That has driven me on through this injury. If I can overcome this injury, which people are saying is impossible, I will be ready for those world titles.”

Sandstrom (7-2-2) is all in on boxing. Even when she turned 32 just a few days ago, her present to herself was another day of hard relentless training.

But all that hard work of rehabilitating her injury is now starting to pay off. The comeback is near but can we call it a comeback when she hasn’t really been away. A fight in May that ended in a frustrating technical draw is her only outing this year, a sharp contrast to the six fights that she had in 2022. Sandstrom will look to make up for lost time in 2024. The super-flyweight world title contender will look to fight early in the new year. There is every chance it will be for a world title.

In our first interview back in 2021, Sandstrom told me, “My main goal is to one day become a world champion. I am in this sport full time and I am giving this sport everything I have. I just want to give it my best shot, and I feel I have good people around me to allow me to make my dreams come true.” Those dreams that might have looked impossible and deluded back then, now look more than a distinct possibility. Very few people deserve it more.