The 2024 Europe’s Strongest Man (ESM) occurred on April 13, 2024. Twelve of the top strongmen in Europe vied for dominance in front of a sold-out crowd at the First Direct Arena in Leeds, UK.
After five grueling events, including the Nicol Stones, Car Walk, Deadlift Ladder, Viking Press, and Atlas Stones, the heat on the stones between Luke Stoltman and Aivars Šmaukstelis decided the top of the podium. Stoltman emerged victorious, reclaiming the ESM title by a single point over Šmaukstelis.
Oleksii Novikov, despite injury, finished in third place overall. The final standings are below:
2024 Europe’s Strongest Man Results
- Luke Stoltman — 44 points
- Aivars Šmaukstelis — 43 points
- Oleksii Novikov — 40 points
- Ondřej Fojtů — 38 points
- Shane Flowers — 36.5 points
- Nicolas Cambi — 35 points
- Pavlo Kordiayaka — 33 points
- Pa O’Dwyer — 33 points
- Rauno Heinla — 33 points
- Gavin Bilton — 21.5 points
- Frederik Johansson — 17 points
- Konstantine Janashia — 10 points
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Event 1 — Nicol Stones
The first event was the Nicol Stones carry, in which the competitors had to lift and carry two awkward, mismatched stones of different weights as far as possible.
Relative newcomer Ondřej Fojtů of Czechia opened the show and set an incredible benchmark that was only eight meters short of the world record. No one could match his performance.
- Ondřej Fojtů — 24.15 meters
- Shane Flowers — 22.62 meters
- Aivars Šmaukstelis — 20.00 meters
- Luke Stoltman — 20.00 meters
- Pavlo Kordiayaka — 17.15 meters
- Pa O’Dwyer — 16.91 meters
- Frederik Johansson — 14.63 meters
- Rauno Heinla — 14.13 meters
- Nicolas Cambi — 13.93 meters
- Oleksii Novikov — 13.00 meters
- Gavin Bilton — 12.64 meters
- Konstantine Janashia — 10.21 meters
Event 2 — Car Walk
The Car Walk is iconic in strongman competition. The modified car body weighs a colossal 450 kilograms and challenges each strongman’s midline to keep the frame steady.
The top four athletes in this event finished within 0.6 seconds of each other. Stoltman scored the win to move into the overall lead. Italy’s Nicolas Cambi was .44 seconds behind Stoltman — stellar for his first Giants Live debut.
- Luke Stoltman — 16.13 seconds
- Nicolas Cambi — 16.57 seconds
- Oleksii Novikov — 16.67 seconds
- Pavlo Kordiayaka — 16.73 seconds
- Konstantine Janashia — 22.38 seconds
- Aivars Šmaukstelis — 24.33 seconsd
- Ondřej Fojtů — 26.09 seconds
- Pa O’Dwyer — 27.69 seconds
- Rauno Heinla — 29.16 seconds
- Gavin Bilton — 32.16 seconds
- Shane Flowers — 41.54 seconds
- Frederik Johansson — 48.10 seconds
Event 3 — Deadlift Ladder
The deadlift ladder event challenged the strongmen to lift five barbells with successively heavier weight — starting at 300 kilograms and maxing out at 380 kilograms. Unfortunately, this event took Konstantine Janashia out of the contest. He injured his hand on the thin metal rings of the Nicol Stones, and after only two deadlifts, he withdrew from the competition.
Only four men locked out all five deadlifts. Renowned deadlifter Rauno Heinla beat the rest of the pack by six seconds. This narrowed the overall field considerably; only one and a half points separated out the top four with Stoltman on top by a half-point over Novikov.
- Rauno Heinla — 5 in 41.28 seconds
- Oleksii Novikov — 5 in 47.91 seconds
- Frederik Johansson — 5 in 50.60 seconds
- Pa O’Dwyer — 5 in 61.35 seconds
- Nicolas Cambi — 4 in 30.02 seconds
- Aivars Šmaukstelis — 4 in 31.65 seconds
- Shane Flowers — 4 in 31.73 seconds
- Gavin Bilton — 4 in 32.77 seconds
- Ondřej Fojtů — 4 in 35.23 seconds
- Luke Stoltman — 4 in 52.76 seconds
- Pavlo Kordiayaka — 4 in 62.53 seconds
- Konstantine Janashia — 2 in 22.90 seconds
Event 4 — Viking Press
Misfortunate hit Sweden’s Fredrik Joansson on his Giants Live debut. As he was unracking the viking press, he suffered a knee injury that took him out of the remainder of the contest.
Fojtů showed well here, winning the event with 16 reps of the huge logs. This pulled him up to second place, only a single point behind the leader, Novikov, with Stoltman half a point further back. With Skaukstelis trailing Stoltman by one point and Cambi another half a point back, any one of five men were in a position to take the overall win.
- Ondřej Fojtů — 16 reps
- Oleksii Novikov — 14 reps
- Luke Stoltman — 13 reps (T-third)
- Aivars Šmaukstelis — 13 reps (T-third)
- Nicolas Cambi — 13 reps (T-third)
- Pavlo Kordiayaka — 12 reps
- Shane Flowers — 11 reps (T-seventh)
- Gavin Bilton — 11 reps (T-seventh)
- Pa O’Dwyer — 8 reps
- Rauno Heinla — 6 reps
- Frederik Johansson — no lift
- Konstantine Janashia — withdrew
Event 5 – Atlas Stones
With five strongmen in contention for the title, it came down to the Atlas Stones to decide the victor. Flowers went in the second heat, setting a blistering time of 18.53 seconds for all five stones.
The fourth heat was between Stoltman and Šmaukstelis, and they were well matched. They loaded the first three stones in tandem. Stoltman moved ahead on the fourth stone, but Šmaukstelis picked up the pace to make it a dead heat on the fifth stone.
The rules state both their hands off the stone stop the clock, but it was too close to call, even after the judges reviewed the footage frame by frame. Stoltman and Šmaukstelis scored the exact same time: 18.58 seconds, only .05 seconds behind Flowers.
The final round was Fojtů and Novikov, but Novikov tore his biceps on the final stone and couldn’t finish the run, an unfortunate close to the competition.
- Shane Flowers — 5 in 18.53 seconds
- Aivars Šmaukstelis — 5 in 18.58 seconds (T-second)
- Luke Stoltman — 5 in 18.58 seconds (T-second)
- Rauno Heinla — 5 in 24.60 seconds
- Pa O’Dwyer — 5 in 27.04 seconds
- Pavlo Kordiayaka — 5 in 27.52 seconds
- Gavin Bilton — 5 in 39.53 seconds
- Oleksii Novikov — 4 in 21.07 seconds
- Ondřej Fojtů — 4 in 21.32 seconds
- Nicolas Cambi — 4 in 32.78 seconds
With the 2024 World’s Strongest Man (WSM only a couple of weeks away, these elite strongmen have little time to recover and will be back in action soon. We’ll see if Novikov’s injury is damaging enough to cause him to withdraw from the 2024 WSM, as Mateusz Kieliszkowski and Martins Licis have already done.
Featured image: @giantslivestrongman on Instagram
