The 2020 World’s Strongest Man (WSM) competition is officially underway. The first two days of WSM were scheduled to take place outdoors, but inclement weather delayed the competition by a full day. The event moved indoors and things are back on track.
Day one of the qualifying stage has fully wrapped with all five qualifier groups, which are comprised of five strongmen each, having completed two events. Those events were:
- Farmer’s carry for max distance
- All groups
- 150 kilograms (331 pounds) per hand
- Deadlift for max reps in 60 seconds
- Groups one, two, and five
- 345 kilograms (761 pounds)
- Squat for max reps in 60 seconds
- Groups three and four
- 315 kilograms (694.5 pounds)
Originally, event coordinators planned for the squat event to turn into a deadlift-only event if the weather was too rough. Because the event competition moved inside, however, it was a nonissue.
Here are the results for the events after day one of the competition:
Farmer’s Carry
Group One
- Jerry Pritchett — 52 meters
- Robert Oberst — 38.87 meters
- Luke Richardson — 20.13 meters
- Gabriel Pena — 9.89 meters
- Patrick O’Dwyer — 7.83 meters
Jerry Pritchett is one of the older competitors in the field with the WSM competition taking place within a week of his 40th birthday.
Group Two
- Evan Singleton — 52.25 meters
- Kevin Faires — 52 meters
- Mark Felix — 42.67 meters
- Mikhail Shivlyakov — 42 meters
- Adam Bishop — 30.48 meters
This is Evan Singleton’s debut at the WSM and he was able to win the first event with a unique move at the end of his farmer’s walk. He lurched forward to get his weights an extra 25 centimeters past Kevin Faires distance to win the event. It was not a safe move for Singleton to do, but it did pay off. In a post-event interview with former BarBend Editor Nick English, Singleton said, “What I did was stupid and dangerous.”
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[Related: All Of The Events For The 2020 World’s Strongest Man]
Group Three
- Oleksii Novikov — 57.54 meters
- Maxime Boudreault — 46.34 meters
- Tom Stoltman — 42.78 meters
- Gavin Bilton — 31.50 meters
- Trey Mitchell — 10.11 meters
Novikov’s farmer’s walk was the furthest distance among all strongmen in the competition. He is also one of the youngest competitors in the competition at just 24 years of age.
Group Four
- JF Caron — 48.20 meters
- Bobby Thompson — 45.59 meters
- Ervin Toots — 18.76 meters
- Graham Hicks — 7.47 meters
- Eythor Ingolfsson Melsted — 5.30 meters
JF Caron is a nine-time Canada’s strongest man and expressed many of the events scheduled for the Finals are favorites of his — particularly the Hercules Hold and Partial Deadlift.
Group Five
- Terry Hollands — 52 meters
- Brian Shaw — 40.10 meters
- Aivars Smaukstelis — 36.56 meters
- Nick Best — 29.56 meters
- Luke Stoltman — 28.86 meters
If Hollands can continue the momentum and qualify for the Finals, it would secure the tenth top-10 finish of his career at the WSM. He was able to best four-time WSM champion Brian Shaw in this event, who is the only former WSM champion in the 2020 field.
[Related: The Strongest Men in Strongman]
Squat
Group Three
- Trey Mitchell — 11 reps
- Oleksii Novikov — 10 reps
- Tom Stoltman — Eight reps
- Maxime Boudreault — Seven reps
- Gavin Bilton — Zero reps
Unfortunately, Bilton suffered an injury during his squat attempt. No further details have yet been made available as to his status for the rest of the competition.
Group Four
- JF Caron — 11 reps
- Bobby Thompson — 11 reps
- Graham Hicks — 10 reps
- Eythor Ingolfsson Melsted — Five reps
- Ervin Toots — Zero reps
This was Caron’s second event win of the day.
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[Related: Laurence Shahlaei Talks World’s Strongest Man (And Which Strongman Records Are Legit)]
Deadlift
Group One
- Jerry Pritchett — Nine reps
- Gabriel Pena — Eight reps
- Luke Richardson — Seven reps
- Patrick O’Dwyer — Six reps
- Robert Oberst — One rep
A big day one performance for Pritchett who secured wins in both events.
Group Two
- Adam Bishop — Nine reps
- Mikhail Shivlyakov — Nine reps
- Mark Felix — Nine reps
- Kevin Faires — Six reps
- Evan Singleton — Four reps
Bishop, Shivlyakov, and Felix all received first place points for the event.
Group Five
- Brian Shaw — Six reps
- Terry Hollands — Six reps
- Luke Stoltman — Five reps
- Aivars Smaukstelis — Five reps
- Nick Best — One rep
Shaw and Hollands both received first place points for the event. Stoltman and Smaukstelis received third-place points for the event.
Day two will feature the last-man-standing stone off event between the second and third-place finishers in each group. The last man standing in each group will earn their spot in the Finals alongside each group’s respective winners. The Finals will take place on Nov. 14-15, 2020.
Feature image via Oleksii Novikov’s Instagram page: @novikov_strong
