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"I always see something new happen here," says Goran Martinovic, a former Croatian boxing champion living in China. The boxing star has been organizing charity boxing matches and won a friendship award from Jiangsu Province.
Goran Martinovic, 33, learned boxing at the age of 3. He boxed on the national boxing team in Croatia and won multiple champions in Europe.
In 2015, he came to Suzhou of east China's Jiangsu Province to help his brother set up Suzhou Showdown white-collar boxing events.
Since then, he has organized charity boxing matches every year, through which 200,000 yuan (28,700 U.S. dollars) has been raised for girls with cleft lips and palates or leukemia. Some 10,000 people in the city, including foreigners, participated in the fundraising.
In 2017, he opened a gym in Suzhou, coaching local white-collar workers boxing and wrestling. He also coaches impoverished kids free of charge.
Last April, he founded a foundation under his own name. Later last year, he won the Jiangsu provincial government friendship award, which is the highest honor the province can bestow on a foreigner.
