Strongman Archives

Entering this week, the 2022 Arnold Strongman Classic (ASC) was set to be one of the best ones yet. With no former champions in the lineup, strongman fans were guaranteed to see a new athlete on top of the podium. 2020 runner-up Mateusz Kieliszkowski was the odds-on favourite… but yesterday, Strongman Polska announced that Kieliszkowski would be forced to pull out of the Arnold Strongman Classic due to a hip injury.

2019 runner-up Martins Licis, who won the Rogue Invitational last year, is now the man with a target on his back. Still, with some entirely new events such as the Max Squat, can we really know what’s going to happen?

Day 1 Events

Max Squat: The Arnold Strongman Classic kicks off with this rarely seen event in strongman, which used to be contested in the 1980s World’s Strongest Man competitions before falling out of favour. We have seen most of the ASC athletes take part in squat events for repetitions before, but never for max weight.

Martins Licis, who won the Squat Lift at the 2019 World’s Strongest Man Final, should do well here, but Rob Kearney, Jean-François Caron and Bobby Thompson have all looked very impressive in training. However, with this being a new event, expect to be surprised!

The event will be contested on the brand new Double T Barbell, a curved implement which looks similar to a Duffalo bar. Designed by former powerlifter Louie Simmons and made by Rogue Fitness, the bar is named after Dr. Terry Todd, founder of the Arnold Strongman Classic. The athletes will have 3 attempts and will choose their own weights.

Dumbbell Press: With a 125 kg / 275 lb implement, this is the second heaviest Dumbbell Press for reps event recorded on Strongman Archives. There have been heavier dumbbells lifted as part of medleys, but only once has a heavier weight been done for reps. That was at the 2016 Arnold Strongman Classic, when Brian Shaw won the event by pressing 136 kg / 300 lb for 3 reps.

Oleksii Novikov is always the man to watch in dumbbell-related events… Novikov has not lost such an event since the 2020 ASC, where he was beaten by Kieliszkowski. The Ukrainian managed 136 kg as part of a medley at the 2021 Rogue Invitational to win the event easily. Newcomer Evgeny Markov is another dumbbell specialist - he has done 130 kg for 5 reps in training - and Trey Mitchell will also be expecting big points in this discipline.

Day 2 Events

Max Log Lift: With 5 men who have pressed more than 200 kg / 441 lb in competition before, we could see some massive weights being lifted here.

Luke Stoltman, who managed 215 kg at last year’s World’s Strongest Man Final, will be one to watch, but Bobby Thompson, Trey Mitchell and Maxime Boudreault were all hot on his heels in that contest… These four could all be above the 450-pound threshold on Saturday afternoon.

Timber Carry: An ASC staple, this event features a 400 kg / 882 lb frame to be carried up a 35-foot ramp. Completing the Timber Carry is a notoriously difficult feat: in 2020, only 3 athletes managed it.

With Mateusz Kieliszkowski’s absence, this event could go either way. Martins Licis finished the Timber Carry in 17.37 seconds in 2020, but Maxime Boudreault is known for his speed in such events. Two years ago, in Santa Monica, Boudreault edged out Licis by just under a second in a very heavy Farmer’s Walk. The Timber Carry could be a make or break event for Tom Stoltman. The Scot is known for having issues with his grip, but he annihilated the frame at World’s Strongest Man last year, showing a tremendous improvement.

Stone to Shoulder: Just like the Timber Carry, the Stone to Shoulder is normally a banker event for Mateusz Kieliszkowski… and just like the Timber Carry, Martins Licis stands to benefit from Kieliszkowski’s withdrawal.

Licis is the only man besides Kieliszkowski to have done multiple reps with the massive 186 kg / 410 lb natural stone in the past. Tom Stoltman, Trey Mitchell and Maxime Boudreault are all tremendous stone lifters, but they have never touched this particular boulder before.

With so many unknown quantities, no former champions and 5 newcomers, this year’s Arnold Strongman Classic could be unforgettable. Tune in to the Rogue Fitness YouTube channel on Friday and Saturday, and make sure to follow along on Strongman Archives!

Tom Stoltman took his second consecutive Britain's Strongest Man title on Saturday, and he did so in dominant fashion.

Stoltman earned 53.5 of a possible 55 points, winning every event except for the Sandbag Toss - he also tied with Adam Bishop in the Deadlift for reps.

With 97.2% of the maximum total, this is, without a doubt, the most dominant performance in Britain's Strongest Man history. Last year, Stoltman had amassed 46 out of a possible 50 points (92%).

Behind him, Pa O'Dwyer became the first representative of the Republic of Ireland to finish on the podium at Britain's Strongest Man. This guarantees O'Dwyer a place at World's Strongest Man in May. The Irishman's previous best BSM result was 5th place last year.

It was not surprising to see Adam Bishop on the podium, but the next man wowed many fans: Shane Flowers, a relative novice in strongman, won the Sandbag Toss and almost made the top 3. This could well have earned Flowers a place at World's Strongest Man.

Sadly, Luke Stoltman was forced to withdraw after the Deadlift because of muscle spasms in his left leg. Stoltman, like his brother, will be back in action this weekend at the Arnold Strongman Classic! Strongman Archives will be previewing this contest later in the week.

Some may have expected Jean-François Caron to take easy at Força Bruta on Sunday, given the fact that we are only 3 weeks away from the prestigious Arnold Strongman Classic. However, that's not in Caron's nature.

The Canadian set the tone in the Deadlift for reps, completing the entire carriage and doing an extra rep for a total of 6 lifts. According to Caron, the final weight was around 900 pounds. Rob Kearney and Rauno Heinla, who was dealing with a quadricep injury, only got 4 reps, while Dmitrii Skosyrskii couldn't get the fourth lift past his knees.

Then, the Keg Toss was as tricky as advertised! Skosyrskii finally cleared 5 after failing the fourth keg multiple times, while Heinla also got 5 but in a quicker time. Kearney was much quicker to 5 and it looked like he had more in the tank, but just like the other men, the sixth keg was a bit too much. Still, his time for 5 kegs was enough to put him into the lead. This left Caron, and he raced through the first 7 kegs before taking it easy... and finishing all 10! This gave him a commanding lead going into the final event, the Truck Pull.

The truck was 4 tons heavier than last year, and it showed. Skosyrskii, who weighs 125 kg, was barely able to get past the start line! Heinla, who is a bit heavier, went off to a very slow start but completed the course in 68 seconds, while the lighter Kearney settled for a very short distance. This left Caron, who used his 154 kg to pull the truck across the line over 20 seconds faster than Heinla for another win.

Overall, Caron scored a maximum of 12 points while Heinla, although he was given 3rd on the live broadcast, officially took 2nd ahead of Kearney. Skosyrskii finished 4th.

Caron and Kearney will both be at the Arnold Strongman Classic in 3 weeks. Stay tuned for more details!

As has been the case in previous years, Brazil will be the first stop of the season for some of the best pro strongmen in the world on Saturday, February 13 as the 10th edition of Força Bruta takes place.

Not all of the best athletes will be there, of course. As is tradition, only 4 strongmen have been invited to Cotia, in the state of São Paulo, to take part in the 3-event competition. The Força Bruta format (4 athletes, 3 events) has been unchanged since 2016 in order to fit within the live television show Esporte Espetacular, which airs on TV Globo - the largest commercial television network in Latin America and the second largest in the world.

An Interesting Mix of Athletes

Among the 4 competitors, only Rauno Heinla has participated in Força Bruta before. Last year, the Estonian was edged out for the overall victory by Russia’s Mikhail Shivlyakov, who sadly cannot make it to Força Bruta this year due to a plethora of injuries.

Shivlyakov has been replaced by his protégé, Dmitrii Skosyrskii, an impressive contender who nearly won the 2020 Arnold Amateur Strongman World Championships before being edged out on the last event by fellow Omsk resident Evgeny Markov.

The 23-year-old Russian doesn’t just have to worry about Rauno Heinla. Also in the contest are Rob Kearney, who finished 6th at last year’s Rogue Invitational, and Jean-François Caron, the 9-time World’s Strongest Man finalist who will be looking forward to his trip to Brazil in order to get away from the frigid Québec winter.

Caron enjoys traveling abroad for competitions: last year, he told Strongman Archives that "in the end, prize money and results are nice, but years later, the experiences are what we remember."

The Trio of Events

Força Bruta will kick off at 9 am local time with the Deadlift for reps. In a similar setup to what we’ve seen at World’s Strongest Man in past years, the athletes will lift a cage that increases in weight with each lift… except instead of barrels, people will be used as weights. Caron and Heinla, two deadlift specialists, will be looking forward to this one.

Next up will be the Keg Toss: 10 kegs ranging from 18 to 26 kg, to be thrown over a 5-metre barrier. This will be a very tough test! Only 8 kegs were used in the past two years.

And, just like in 2021, the contest will end with the Truck Pull. It should be the same setup as last year, which everyone had managed in 45 seconds or less.

A Rich History

Brazil is not known for producing the greatest strongmen in the world, but Força Bruta has proven popular enough to remain featured within the Esporte Espetacular TV show for a decade.

In 2013 and 2015, the competition was held in conjunction with the Arnold Sports Festival South America, while Strongman Champions League organized it in 2014. It then moved from Rio de Janeiro to Santos in 2017, before settling in Cotia the following year (the 2018 edition was a team contest which saw Poland’s Mateusz Kieliszkowski and Krzysztof Radzikowski beat Brazil’s Tiago Aparecido and Marcos Ferrari). Out of the first 9 editions of Força Bruta, Brian Shaw has been the most successful athlete, winning the contest 3 times in 4 appearances.

Pure relief could be seen on the face of Martins Licis after he easily threw the 420-pound Inver Stone replica over the bar at the inaugural Rogue Invitational strongman competition.

It wasn't just because Licis had earned the largest sum of money for one contest in strongman history (just over $133,000), nor was it just because he had beaten 2021 WSM champion Tom Stoltman on his best event... Martins Licis had also shown the strongman world that his 2019 World's Strongest Man title was no fluke, and that he was finally on the rise again. This was a first competition victory for Licis since the 2020 Arnold USA, nearly two years ago.

The Rogue Invitational started with the highly anticipated Elephant Bar Deadlift. Unfortunately, Brian Shaw and Mikhail Shivlyakov respectively sustained hamstring and calf injuries in this event, while previous issues prevented Jerry Pritchett, Rob Kearney and Mateusz Kieliszkowski from achieving their best lifts.

This left the door wide open for Jean-François Caron, who only gave "80% effort" to get the event win with 926 lb / 420 kg. Tom Stoltman (911 lb) and Martins Licis (906 lb).

The next event, the Cyr Dumbbell Ladder, was all about Oleksii Novikov. The Ukrainian, who lifted a 153.2 kg dumbbell in training recently, cleared the entire set of five weights while no one else got more than three. Licis finished 2nd and Stoltman 5th - the only event in which they were separated by more than one place.

The athletes opened up day two with the Wheel of Pain and, with so many athletes injured, no one managed to push it to Licis's record distance of 119'9, set in 2019. Instead, Stoltman held off Licis for the win with just over 89 feet, meaning that the gap between the leaders was down to a single point.

In the penultimate event, the athletes had to carry a 454 kg yoke for 15 metres before completing 3 reps of a 163 kg log lift. Jean-François Caron set the early pace in 54.51 seconds while Luke Stoltman surprisingly struggled, but it was Mateusz Kieliszkowski who stole the show, viper pressing the log in order to finish in just over 40 seconds. Oleksii Novikov almost beat that time, but stumbled on his last press and had to take a few seconds to recover before trying again.

Tom Stoltman delivered a clean run, finishing in 50.65 seconds to put himself into second place, but Martins Licis did more than enough to beat that time, his 43.33 giving him a two-point lead before the final event.

The five Inver Stone replicas, ranging from 125 to 191 kg, proved challenging for the first eight athletes: only Caron was able to complete the set. Tom Stoltman then went, and he made the stones look easy, stopping the clock in 29.16 seconds. This meant that Licis had to beat Caron's time of 42.45 in order to win the contest.

And it was a piece of cake for Martins. He blew Stoltman's time out of the water and, as is tradition, screamed out his own first name after finishing.

Licis, who missed the last two World's Strongest Man competitions due to a plethora of injuries, will be a major threat to Tom Stoltman and Oleksii Novikov next year. Mateusz Kieliszkowski, meanwhile, took 4th place behind Novikov at the Rogue Invitational in spite of a lat injury... 2022 should be a thrilling strongman season!

Scotland's Tom Stoltman, the current World's Strongest Man, was dominant in his quest to win the British title on Saturday evening in Sheffield. Stoltman amassed 46 out of a possible 50 points and finished in the top 3 in every event to guarantee himself the victory.

The day started with the Dumbbell Medley, a test that has caused Stoltman trouble in the past. At the WUS Strength Island competition in March, the Scotsman had failed to lift the 100 kg dumbbell but on Saturday, he powered through the 100 and 110 kg dumbbells to get off to a good start. He then put in a respectable performance in the Super Yoke and tied for the win in the Deadlift.

After that, the title was just a formality as Stoltman won the Loading Race, just over a second ahead of his brother Luke. Then, in the Atlas Stones, the Albatross made it 11 wins in his last 12 stone runs, putting his Glasgow mishap behind him.

The two previous champions, Adam Bishop (2020) and Graham Hicks (2019) were able to reach the podium. Both athletes tied Tom Stoltman with 8 reps in the Deadlift, and that proved crucial as Luke Stoltman only managed 5 reps. This gave them 5 more points than the Highland Oak in that particular event, which proved decisive as Hicks finished one point in front of the Europe's Strongest Man champion.

This was the first Scottish victory at Britain's Strongest Man since Forbes Cowan's win in 1995, and the first win for a non-English athlete since 2001 (Glenn Ross).

The athletes will start training again soon, as the next Britain's Strongest Man will be taking place in just over 4 months. However, some have other plans: Luke and Tom Stoltman will head to the Rogue Invitational next week, Shane Flowers has entered the Official Strongman Games, and Andy Black will compete at the Magnús Ver Magnússon Strongman Classic. Hibernation has not started just yet!