Well, Shaw likes to make excuses when he doesn’t win, but he’s not stupid…LOL.
Oh, I agree. For WSM, he’s just too slow for the athletes that are competing now. For Arnolds, he had Thor in the way, then he got old.
Definitely seems that Shaw is just a tad slower and weaker than he was before. At his peak he could complete the kegs in under 17 seconds. Now he’s not breaking 20s. The clock keeps ticking for everyone.
Copied from a facebook page:
WSM2020 STANDINGS AFTER 5 OF 6 EVENTS:boom:
OLEKSII NOVIKOV 40PTS
JERRY PRITCHETT 36PTS
J-F CARON 34PTS
TOM STOLTMAN 33.5PTS
ADAM BISHOP 29PTS
KEVIN FAIRES 28PTS
BRIAN SHAW 26.5PTS
AIVARS SMAUKSTELIS 22.5PTS
LUKE RICHARDSON 20.5PTS
GRAHAM HICKS 1PT
Tom (king of the stones) Stoltman to podium if he gets the expected win. Possible 2nd place…
I’ve got to retire to bed now. Looking forward to reading about this tomorrow.
Gutted for JF. He will get dusted by Tom on stones, but I feel he deserves a higher placing than Stoltman.
Aside, Novikov or Jerry will be great champions. Kinda hoping it’s Novikov just because I think he’ll have a better rivalry with Mateusz and Licis in the future.
Great point. It should be awesome to watch all 3 in the same competition now. Martins is buddies with both. Not sure about Mateusz and Novikov.
Novikov has a good personality from stuff I’ve seen. Eddie Hall asked him about deadlifting 500kg after his massive 18 inch deadlift performance (said he thought Novikov had the leverages for it), and Novikov said he doesn’t talk trash, and would only talk about doing 500kg if he knew he could do it.
Also saw a video where Novikov was duct taping his busted shower flops, Martins was making fun of him, and Novikov then duct taped Martins’ flip flops with a roman soldier sandals type of look -it was hilarious.
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Does Caron have a bad shoulder or something? He failed to rep the dumbbell at Arnolds, and he was only able to get 3 of the 5 logs in the log ladder today.
This was hilarious. That alone warrants him to be a good champion hahaha.
We have a winner.
1. Oleksii Novikov – 47 points
2. Tom Stoltman – 43.5 points
3. JF Caron – 42 points
4. Jerry Pritchett – 40 points
5. Brian Shaw – 35.5 points
6. Adam Bishop – 34 points
7. Kevin Faires – 31 points
8. Aivars Smaukstelis – 28.5 points
9. Luke Richardson – 22.5 points
10. Graham Hicks (withdrew)*
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Looking at the stone times:
Stoltman 5 in 19 seconds
Next fastest Shaw with 5 in 28 seconds.
Thats blown me away.
I think for both log medley and for the stones, Novikov did just enough to win, based on how fast he did the 4. Possibly they might’ve been max type weights, so not worth the possibility of injury?
Won’t know for sure until the actual show or possibly Novikov mentions it elsewhere.
Yeah, for 5 stones, Shaw’s time is historically pretty good. Stoltman was next level. Usually by the 5th stone guys are slowing up a bit to catch a few breaths before hitting it. Under 20 seconds is basically just one motion smashing every stone.
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FTR Tom won 3 of 6 events in the final… It’s amazing he didn’t win. All he had to do was not suck so bad on the Hercules hold. Tom’s the future.
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I happen to agree with you. But Tom came 2nd in a depleted feild. Example: none of the last 3 years winners were competing.
I’m not saying any of those “missing” would beat him. Hall especially not. But this years will always have an unofficial * next to it. The feild was light.
While that’s true, it’s also true that the field this year had more to deal with that previous champions. Also Martins is hurt and thor and eddie are retired. Those guys aren’t out because travel restrictions wouldn’t allow it. They aren’t competitive. There is no asterisk. I mean, Tom did things like destroy Shaw at Shaw’s best events (stones and keg toss). The guys on the podium are currently the best strongmen in the world. Period.
I wouldn’t say its a fully fledged asterisk, but whenever a competition favourite is absent there is always a significant ‘what if’. As you say Thor and Eddie are retired, that simply is what it is, but the absences of, to a degree, Martins and very definitely Mateusz did leave big holes in the line-up. Martins took a lot of time off so probably wasn’t up to speed, but until very recently Mateusz looked stronger than ever.
Looking at how many points it took to win, I don’t see a non injured Mateusz not on the podium, even with the deadlift.
Right, and that happens most years. It would be fun to see all top guys at 100% going head to head, but that never happens. Staying healthy is part of being a good strong man. There are “what-ifs” every single year. Although the bike accent taking out Martins was on the odd side. With a torn triceps, Mateusz isn’t one of the top 3 strongest men in the world.
Also to note, Thor looks skinny right now.
This years podium guys shouldn’t have an asterisk next to there names when we look at some past WSM shenanigans. Kaz supposedly not being invited for several years basically makes me think that Geoff Capes would have 2 second places, not wins. Jon Pall probably would have only won 2 (Bill would have likely won 1, and OD Wilson got totally robbed by the show promoters trying to give the champ another win).
There are always injuries, no one is saying there aren’t. This year there are a disproportionately high number of injuries among the top guys, including the reigning WSM and the guy thats been on the podium the last few years both who was the otherwise favourite. I suspect you’d also have to go back some way to find a final where there wasn’t one of the winners from the previous 3 years in attendance.
Separate issue but totally agree. There is some pretty mad history