This weekend I went down to Leeds to watch Europe’s Strongest Man and the Deadlift comp. It was the first live strongman event I’ve seen and it was a great show with a lively crowd.
The competitors look big on the TV, but they look colossal in real life. There were a lot of guys in the crowd who would generally be the biggest guys in most rooms they walk into, but they were all dwarfed by the strongmen. Even Eddie Hall looked short next to some of them but he’s 6’3". Shaw and Thor tower over everyone, Lalas’ arms probably have their own gravitational field, and Hicks looks almost as broad across the shoulders as he is tall. Laurence Shahlaei was looking HUGE and in fantastic condition, so it was a shame when he tore his lat pulling 446kg.
The organisers will be thinking twice about holding the DL comp before the strongman competition next year as it decimated the field of competitors: only 5 were left by the end of the day: Thor, Felix, Hicks, Radzikowski, and Arsjo (who got a new Swedish DL record at 420kg). It was hard to believe how fast the bar was moving at times given the weight.
Here’s a few pics and videos. Not the best quality but I was using my phone.
Saw Magnus ver Magnusson heading for the bar and decided not to let him buy his own drinks. It was pretty cool seeing him walk around with a huge 2-pint beer I’d bought him, ha.
And this is this year’s female co-presenter, Caroline Pearce. We saw her hanging around in the tunnel and grabbed a photo op… She’s a good sport letting us manhandle her lol
Eddie Hall attempts a new British record and it falls from his hands.
I wish I’d kept the camera running because he had time left to try again, and added some nice showboating by conducting an interview without letting go of the bar.
Here is the disallowed 461kg DL. The crowd were really behind him, and I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t given because I would have liked to see what he and Benni would have done next. He called Magnus ver Magnusson a “twat” over the mic, then apologied to the crowd for his bad language!
Here are the stones. Thor ripped his shirt off when he won, and then they challenged five women to sing “I will always love you” by Whitney Houston to win his sweat-soaked shirt. One of them started singing a song about Christmas written by her boyfriend and got booed off.
Aye it was class! Spotted her hanging around texting in one of the tunnels so shouted her over. She was even hotter up close and her bum feels nice on your shoulder, ha!
