So, this year’s heats and qualifying events are out on startingstrongman and it seems they’re trying something a little different this time. First athlete in every heat goes through to the finals, the second finalist will be determined by a last-man-standing-style atlas stone event.
Last Man Standing Stones how we understand it is it is a stone over bar and 6th vs 5th goes against each other until one can’t complete a rep then 4th steps in, etc until one man is left standing and that athlete qualifies for the finals.
I’m not quite sure what to think of this. What do you guys think?
Also, it’ll be interesting to see how Savickas does after his break and weight loss. I’m hoping to see Terry Hollands in the finals again, but his heat looks pretty tough.
It will all be put on television, but usually several months after the fact with extensive editing.
WSM has always been a tv show first and a sport second. They are really trying to make things exciting for the spectators. Will have to see if this helps.
I’ve got to say though, I really hope that at some point they’ll stop recording it half a year in advance and holding it in obscure places just to make sure that as few people as possible make it out there. The results are online right away anyway. And they could still show a rerun around christmas to get those viewers who are not really interested in strongman but who watch wsm at christmas/new year’s as a tradition.
They are absolutely AWFUL to watch live. It’s why they edit the hell out of them. Had friends talk about taking 6 hours to watch 2 heats do 1 event. For live viewing, I would stick with the Arnold and Europe’s Strongest Man.
I don’t want to watch it live. I forgot how often it was in the US in recent years. Sometimes, I had the impression they were sort of half-heartedly trying to stop results from getting public by going to Botswana, China, Malaysia and so on, but I guess that’s not really their motivation.
But if they managed to televise it within two weeks or so I might be able to resist looking up the results online and it would make watching it a lot more exciting.
That is by design. It prevents people from coasting through the pre-lims. Instead, they need to absolutely dominate the competition if they don’t want to be dethrowned on the very last event.
I expect the points leader does not compete in the last man standing. It should be pointed out that being second going into the last man standing still means you have a huge advantage. You don’t have to start lifting the stone until there is one guy left and he will already be at least somewhat winded from beating the guys before him.
Even if Points Leader did compete they would have nothing to compete for, they are in…unless the winner of LMS would overtake him in points AND in that case they would only send 1 person.
I’m happy for Nick Best, he seems like a really nice guy, and I’m very interested to see what Savickas can do in the finals this year, but I’m still gutted that Terry didn’t make it again…