Strongman Archives

The second qualifying group at the 2022 World’s Strongest Man is headlined by the only multiple champion in the field, Brian Shaw. The four-time WSM champion (2011, 2013, 2015 and 2016) missed out on a third crown last year, finishing only 3 points behind Tom Stoltman, and he is still hungry for the title. At age 40, Shaw is still one of the favourites to take home the crown this year.

This group is the only one to feature three finalists from last year. Along with Shaw, Konstantine Janashia and Bobby Thompson (respectively 6th and 9th in the 2021 Final) are looking to qualify again.

Janashia, the Georgian Bull, has qualified for the Final in all five of his WSM appearances. Only 3 men in history have done so more than 5 times in a row to start a career: Hugo Girard (6 times), Hafthor Julius Bjornsson (9 times) and Mariusz Pudzianowski (9 times). Thompson has proven his worth in the past few years, tying Luke Stoltman for 3rd place at this year’s Arnold Strongman Classic.

A third resident of the United States is representing Mexico in Group 2! Gabriel Peña is looking for revenge after his first World’s Strongest Man, in 2020, was cut short due to health concerns. After a year on the sidelines, he is ready for another opportunity.

Veteran Mark Felix needs no introduction: at age 56, he is making a record-breaking 17th WSM appearance! Felix last made the Final in 2015, but he has proven time and time again that he is still among the elite 30. Last year, he took 6th at the Britain's Strongest Man competition.

Rounding out the group is a relatively unknown athlete… Mitchell Hooper of Canada made a name for himself in Australia in the past few years, lifting massive weights in regional competitions. The 2022 WSM will be his first international competition, and he has some very high hopes although the odds are always stacked against newcomers.

The Events

The Loading Race could go either way… None of these athletes are particularly known for their speed, but perhaps the experience of Brian Shaw or Konstantine Janashia could come in handy.

The Deadlift Ladder will see one or two great deadlifters bringing up the rear! Janashia won this event at Europe’s Strongest Man, Mark Felix used to be unbeatable at it, Gabriel Peña and Mitchell Hooper have pulled massive weights have pulled massive weights in the past year, while both Shaw and Bobby Thompson did very well in the Deadlift for reps in 2021. Who will lose out? It’s hard to say!

The Car Walk could see Shaw make up some points, but Thompson is also very good in yoke events. Hooper has shown great potential for this event in training as well.

Thompson should be right up there again the Log Lift for reps, with Janashia and Shaw hot on his heels.

The Wrecking Ball Hold is another event that is difficult to call for some of the athletes in this group, but it should be a great way to end the Qualifying Round for veteran Mark Felix, who is nearly unbeatable in grip events.

If Thompson finds himself in the Stone Off, he could have a hard time against Janashia or Shaw… But with Group 2 being so stacked, the 4-time champion may have to face this event for the first time ever.

Some Head-to-head Matchups

Brian Shaw 7-0 Konstantine Janashia (most recent meeting: 2021 Shaw Classic - Shaw 2nd, Janashia 10th)

Brian Shaw 2-0 Bobby Thompson (most recent meeting: 2021 Shaw Classic - Shaw 2nd, Thompson 6th)

Konstantine Janashia 2-2 Bobby Thompson (most recent meeting: 2021 WUS Dubai - Janashia 5th, Thompson 6th)

Our picks: Bobby Thompson & Brian Shaw

The first qualifying group at the 2022 World’s Strongest Man features a massive name: Tom Stoltman, the returning champion, will begin his title defense against a tough lineup of athletes.

Perhaps surprisingly, no other 2021 finalists are in this group, but Kevin Faires and Aivars Šmaukstelis have both been there before back in 2020, with Faires finishing 7th… just ahead of Šmaukstelis. Ireland’s Pa O’Dwyer, who finished 2nd at this year’s Britain’s Strongest Man, will be looking to put pressure on the two former finalists.

Group 1 features two newcomers: Gabriel Rhéaume, last year’s Canada’s Strongest Man champion, and Manuel Angulo, the first Chilean competitor in WSM history. Angulo finished 13th in last year’s Masters World’s Strongest Man competition (age 40+) and, at 44 years old, will become the second oldest rookie in WSM history (behind Odd Haugen, who made his debut at age 51).

The Events

This group is composed of some very fit and fast athletes. The first event, the Loading Race, has been a banker for Tom Stoltman, who has won 7 of his last 8 loading events in competition. Kevin Faires, Aivars Šmaukstelis and Pa O’Dwyer have all been successful in such events as well.

Stoltman and O’Dwyer are known for their deadlifting ability: the Scot easily won the Axle Deadlift at Europe’s Strongest Man, while the Irishman has consistently done well on such events. They should score high in the Deadlift Ladder. Manuel Angulo is an intriguing prospect… Last year, he completed the Deadlift Ladder in the Masters World’s Strongest Man competition, but the weights were 265 to 345 kg.

The Car Walk has not always suited Stoltman so well in the past, but he showed signs of improvement in this event during last year’s Giants Live World Tour Finals. Šmaukstelis should do well here too, and look out for Gabriel Rhéaume: the Canadian has often been impressive on yoke events and has been training on heavy equipment heading into World’s Strongest Man.

The defending WSM champion should get more good points in the Log Lift for reps, while Šmaukstelis is always a threat too.

The Wrecking Ball Hold, a test of grip, could be a bigger challenge for Stoltman… but he may not even need the points! In spite of Gabriel Rhéaume’s strong hands, this event should belong to Kevin Faires, who holds the Nicol Stone world record and finished 2nd in the Hercules Hold in the 2020 WSM Final.

If a catastrophe happens and Stoltman has to perform the Stone Off, he will make the final - no one in this group can touch him on stone events. Faires and Šmaukstelis both managed the 210 kg stone twice before losing out last year, and this could mean redemption for one of these two athletes.

Some Head-to-head Matchups

Tom Stoltman 3-0 Kevin Faires (most recent meeting: 2021 Giants Live World Tour Finals - Stoltman 2nd, Faires 4th).

Tom Stoltman 3-1 Aivars Šmaukstelis (most recent meeting: 2021 Giants Live Strongman Classic - Stoltman 5th, Šmaukstelis 10th).

Tom Stoltman 4-1 Pa O’Dwyer since 2020 (most recent meeting: 2022 Britain’s Strongest Man - Stoltman 1st, O’Dwyer 2nd).

Kevin Faires 3-1 Aivars Šmaukstelis (most recent meeting: 2021 Shaw Classic - Stoltman 5th, Šmaukstelis 10th).

Aivars Šmaukstelis 1-1 Pa O’Dwyer (most recent meeting: 2022 Europe’s Strongest Man - Šmaukstelis 6th, O’Dwyer 10th).

Our picks: Tom Stoltman & Kevin Faires

The Siberian Power Show (SPS), which featured a very strong lineup in 2021 and planned to have multiple American competitors such as Wesley Claborn and Gabriel Peña this year, has now officially confirmed that no international athletes will be able to make it to Krasnoyarsk in just under two weeks' time.

Getting in and out of Russia has become very difficult following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in late February. The Russian strongman champion, Evgeny Markov, was able to travel abroad for the Arnold Strongman Classic earlier in March, but he has lost his invite to Europe's Strongest Man due to the travel restrictions. Markov will also be unable to make it to World's Strongest Man, in May.

A Logistical Nightmare

The situation is difficult to accept for promoter Denis Kiyutsin, who wanted to build on last year's success at the SPS. Kiyutsin and his team had planned a contest featuring 5 Americans and 5 Russians to play on the old Cold War theme, months before the international situation soured. Iran's Peiman Maheripour was also supposed to be there in order to challenge the Max Deadlift world record.

Now, it will be a lineup of 10 very strong Russians, but the organizers know that the SPS will not draw the international attention it normally would have. "Denis didn't cancel the tournament although he could have! He invests his money in the organization from year to year [...] and he dreamed of making an incredible show, now he has to change absolutely everything", bemoans Kseniya Kovalchuk, who is also part of the organizing team.

For those interested, the Siberian Power Show can be watched here.

The competition features 25-year-old phenom David Shamey, who tied Travis Ortmayer on points at the SPS last year. Shamey is the favourite to win and should do extremely well in the Dumbbell Press. 130 kg could well fly up! Another athlete to look out for is Ivan Makarov, who will challenge the deadlift world record. Last year, Makarov managed 475 kg at the World Deadlift Championships.

If you were a hardcore fan of strongman in the mid-2000s, you probably heard about the World Strongman Cup (WSMC) Federation. Although its existence was brief (founded in 2004, it folded and was replaced by the World Strongman Federation at the end of 2007), WSMC aired on television in many countries and it attracted athletes such as Mariusz Pudzianowski, Vasyl Virastyuk, Terry Hollands and Janne Virtanen.

Entering the 2007 strongman season, WSMC had held competitions in 13 countries and had plans to explore one more. Its first contest of 2007, scheduled for March 15-16, would be held on Kish Island, 19 km southwest of mainland Iran. This would be a historic contest in many ways: it would be the first international strongman competition to take place in Iran. A few years prior, in 2002, IFSA had tried to set up an international Grand Prix on Kish Island, but the project fell through.

This time, though, the contest would happen. WSMC had made arrangements with local promoters, and it was bringing over some of the best strongmen in the world at the time, including 4 World’s Strongest Man finalists from the previous year: Pudzianowski, Mark Felix, Tarmo Mitt and Raivis Vidzis all made the trip to Iran. In fact, it would be a whopping lineup of 21 athletes who would face a total of 8 events.

Excluding the 3 Iranian athletes, the men travelled some long distances to get to the competition, many of them having to pay for their flight before getting a refund along with their prize money at the end of the show. Still, the competitors were greeted by some beautiful sights. After all, Kish Island is one of the most sought-after travel destinations in the Middle East.

The strongmen arrived in Iran on Tuesday, March 13, two days before the start of the competition. This would give them some time to test the equipment and adjust to the jet lag before the Truck Pull, on Thursday morning.

No Money, No Equipment

Some questions began to be raised by the competitors as, on the eve of the beginning of the contest, there was no equipment. The following day… still no equipment, which meant that the WSMC competition would be pushed back to March 16-17. Concerns grew among the athletes. "Nobody told us anything," Arild Haugen recounted to IronMind a few days later.

On Friday, March 16, the implements finally arrived. However, the strongmen were getting increasingly worried about the money promised to them, and they decided that they would only do 2 events before stopping if the money didn’t materialize.

One Lift Too Many

The opening event was the Truck Pull. As usual for WSMC competitions, it was quite light and the athletes all finished the course in under 33 seconds. Mariusz Pudzianowski took the early lead with a time of 21.23, but Tarmo Mitt just edged him out by finishing in 21.12 seconds. Dominic Filiou nearly stole the win, but he settled for second place, 0.07 seconds behind Mitt. Ralf Ber and Rene Minkwitz also finished in under 22 seconds, while a young Mark Felix (only 40 years old at the time) was classified 11th.

Afterwards, the 21 athletes took on the Log Lift: 130 kg for reps in 75 seconds. Sadly, the results for this event did not survive the test of time, and Strongman Archives was not able to find the scores. However, we do know what happened next…

The Iranian fans were quite enthusiastic about the strongman competition, and they were excited to meet the international athletes for the first time. After the Log Lift, two young Iranian women approached Arild Haugen and asked for a photo with him. The 21-year-old Norwegian happily obliged, lifting the women up for a photo. Unfortunately, such interactions are not tolerated in Iran. "The police grabbed the girls and put them straight in jail", Haugen told IronMind.

The contest was stopped by the police - even before the athletes had had time to put an end to it themselves - and the Iranian promoter was taken to jail along with the two women. He would be released a day later.

Haugen, meanwhile, had to write an apology for the police and was told to sign it "Arild Stupid Haugen", in order to avoid being arrested (!). The competitors and WSMC officials quickly left Iran and the federation’s following contest, in Dubai, was cancelled.

WSMC’s season finally officially started in Latvia, on May 13. Before the competition, WSCF Manager Vlad Redkin told IronMind that "the Iranian stage was a little mistake; all normal men understand this."

However, the two events on Kish Island left their mark on the athletes. Back then, a competitor recalled Iranians telling athletes: "Please tell the world we need help."

Arild Haugen never competed with the WSMC federation again, but the other strongmen were undeterred: 14 of them entered at least one other WSMC contest before it became the World Strongman Federation, later in 2007.

With Mateusz Kieliszowski’s withdrawal due to a hip injury, Martins Licis was the overwhelming favourite going into the 2022 Arnold Strongman Classic. The Dragon then proceeded to overwhelm the opposition throughout the contest, delivering a methodical performance like only he knows how.

Just like at the 2021 Rogue Invitational, Licis did not win an event until the very last test… which he did not even need to win outright as he had a sufficient lead after four events. The resident of California amassed points with great regularity, finishing in the top 4 places in every single event.

In the opening discipline, the Double T Squat, Licis squatted 956 pounds, which left him just behind Rob Kearney and event winner Jean-François Caron, who made 966 pounds look easy in a dominant display of leg power.

The athletes had a maximum of three attempts, and some were perhaps too conservative: 7 of 10 competitors were successful in all of their lifts. This was not the case for Luke Stoltman, who attempted to jump from 816 to 906 pounds and was unsuccessful, leaving him in last place in the event in spite of the fact that he looked stronger than other athletes on lighter weights. Oleksii Novikov, meanwhile, just managed 906 and got off to a good start.

Novikov then took advantage of his favourite event, the Dumbbell Press, to make up some ground. The Ukrainian, who received a standing ovation as he carried his country’s flag, managed an incredible 7 reps with the 125 kg implement.

"I really appreciate the American people and [the] whole world who support Ukraine now, because it’s very important at this moment", Novikov told presenter Kiki Dickson.

Rob Kearney was able to get 4 reps for second place, giving him the overall lead, while Luke Stoltman, Evgeny Markov and Martins Licis all got 3. Surprisingly, four athletes failed to press the dumbbell.

The next event, the Austrian Oak, saw a great battle between Luke Stoltman, Bobby Thompson and Trey Mitchell, all of them needing to make up some ground. Stoltman prevailed with a 470-pound lift, Thompson just failing at 480.

The leading trio also battled hard, but Kearney had to stop at 420 pounds as he is still in the process of recovering from a tricep injury sustained in 2020. Novikov tried 440 but couldn’t quite lock it out, while Licis pressed it to cut Kearney’s lead to half a point.

In the Timber Carry, Kearney knew he was going to struggle - at least, he was able to move the frame a few feet this year, which was not too disappointing for him. Novikov nearly completed the course, while Licis did it with no drops to take a 2.5-point lead overall, but it was Maxime Boudreault who shone through by finishing the event in 8.41 seconds to earn his first ASC event victory.

The Stone to Shoulder was a spectacular show, although it started slowly with multiple men failing to break ground. Trey Mitchell almost got a rep but could not stabilize the boulder on his shoulder. Bobby Thompson wowed the crowd by becoming the first man to complete a lift. Then, Oleksii Novikov looked like he would have to settle for a single lap, but he was able to drive the stone up to his shoulder with seconds to spare, drawing a new ovation.

Still, this event belonged to Licis, who, along with Kieliszkowski, is the only man in the world to have lifted this 186 kg stone to his shoulder multiple times in 150 seconds. Licis did it twice and made it look easy, securing his maiden Arnold Strongman Classic title.

Behind him, Novikov was able to take second place, and his prize purse was increased from $25,000 to $80,000 to support the war efforts in Ukraine. Novikov later confirmed that the entirety of the money would be used to buy "armor, helmets and drones, thermal imagers and other necessities" for the Ukrainian troops.

Luke Stoltman and Bobby Thompson tied for third place. Stoltman became the second athlete from the United Kingdom to finish on the podium (Glenn Ross was the other). Rob Kearney had to be satisfied with fifth - these were career-best results at the ASC for the first 9 athletes.

Caron’s Career in Jeopardy

Sadly, an incident during the Austrian Oak put a damper over the weekend. Canada’s Jean-François Caron was attempting to press a 420-pound log for his final attempt, but his knees buckled under him and the log then fell on top of his legs. The competition was stopped for over 45 minutes as the platform was dismantled to allow Caron’s safe transportation. He was carried out on a stretcher.

It was later confirmed that both of Caron’s quadriceps tendons completely broke. He was operated on by surgeons in Columbus on Sunday and both tendons were successfully reattached. However, he now has a long road ahead.

"The rehabilitation period will take at least a year, we’ll see, as the doctor told me. At 39, I knew it could happen to me at any time. At every competition, there was a chance of [a major injury] happening", Caron explained to Québec newspaper Le Soleil.

The 9-time Canadian champion should be on his way back home via an air ambulance on Wednesday.

Pro Strongwoman: Long Too Strong

Victoria Long delivered a clinical performance in spite of Andrea Thompson’s best efforts during the fifth edition of the Arnold Pro Strongwoman competition. Long earned 54.5 out of a possible 60 points, giving her a 9-point win. She notably won the Wheelbarrow Carry, Bag Over Bar and Yoke Ladder.

Thompson finished second but won the Hummer Tire Deadlift in spectacular fashion with a total of 800 pounds. She also dominated the Viking Press, getting six more reps than any other athletes - a very strong showing from the 2018 World’s Strongest Woman.

The competition featured a close-fought battle for 3rd place, with two athletes finishing in a tie. Unlike the Arnold Strongman Classic, countback was used to separate Hannah Linzay and Olga Liashchuk, with Linzay earning the final podium spot ahead of the two-time Arnold Pro Strongwoman champion. Melissa Peacock, who won the middleweight category in 2020, finished fifth.