After finally winning World’s Strongest Man last week in a hotly contested one-point win over Iceland’s Hafthor Bjornsson, Eddie Hall announced that he was retiring from World’s Strongest Man competition.
In a new interview with the United Kingdom’s Express newspaper, Hall made the surprising announcement that he’s considering transitioning into the sport of Olympic weightlifting.
He told journalist Rod Gilmour:
It has crossed my mind to enter weightlifting and win a medal for my country. No one that can put over 200kg over their head… I can do it without any technique. So I could maybe test the waters (…) I’m sure my backers would stand their ground and back me all the way. Not only to support the world’s strongest man, but an Olympian.
Hall also went into more detail regarding his decision to retire from international strongman competition, echoing similar comments made by fellow elite strongmen Hafthor Bjornsson and Brian Shaw: the consequences of maintaining such an extremely high calorie intake is very arduous, both mentally and physically.
Being this size and this weight is a dark place. All the organs are under pressure (…) I want to get my life back, sleep properly and put my own shoes and socks on. I want to be able to sit on a plane and not bulge over two seats. I haven’t had a holiday in seven years. I got married four years ago and still haven’t had my honeymoon.
The entire interview is worth a read, particularly if you didn’t know that Hall was once on the path to become an Olympic swimmer, until he quit because he felt his coach was too antagonistic.
But Olympic weightlifting? At 29 years old and a clear desire to lose a lot of weight first, it seems unlikely that Hall is going to be able to progress to a point where he’ll be able to compete in the Olympics — and remember, he said he’d like to be an Olympian, not a recreational weightlifter.
But hey, he’s already the World’s Strongest Man, which requires a ton of explosive as well as static strength. And if we know anything about Hall it’s that he’s an expert at achieving the improbable.
Featured image via @eddie_hall_strong on Instagram.
