In September 2023, three-time Arnold Strongman Classic champion and 2018 World’s Strongest Man winner Hafthor Björnsson announced he was coming back to strongman. And now we know the details of when it will happen.
On October 14, 2023, Björnsson announced that he is making his competitive return to the sport at the 2024 Arnold Strongman Classic (ASC), slated for the weekend of March 1-3, 2024, in Columbus, OH. He will then compete in the 2024 Arnold Strongman UK contest two weeks later, on March 15-17, in Birmingham, England. The third show will be the 2024 Rogue Invitational.
The details of that show haven’t been announced as of this writing. Björnsson made this announcement on both his Instagram and YouTube pages. You can watch the YouTube video below.
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The Arnold Sports Festival confirmed Björnsson’s return to their contests to BarBend. Björnsson’s return comes after recovering from a torn pectoral muscle he suffered in a powerlifting meet in Iceland on April 15, 2023.
Following his surgery and rehab, he announced that he would return to his original strength sport in a YouTube video on September 20. He showed signs of returning to his old form when he posted a video of himself deadlifting 290 kilograms (639.4 pounds) easily on October 13.
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Björnsson originally retired from the sport of strongman following his 10th Iceland’s Strongest Man title in 2020, which broke a tie with Magnus ver Magnusson for the most ever. He had shifted his focus to boxing, culminating in a win over 2017’s World’s Strongest Man winner, Eddie Hall, in March 2022.
He then entered the world of powerlifting with a goal to beat Dan Bell’s all-time world record raw (w/wraps) total before suffering his injury. Now, he’s returning to strongman to reclaim the Arnold Strongman Classic title, which he already won three times in a row from 2018 to 2020. (He has never won the Arnold UK title.)
Björnsson Faces Stiff Competition
With the retirement of four-time World’s Strongest Man Brian Shaw following his victory at the 2023 Shaw Classic, Björnsson’s return provides another major name to bring interest and enthusiasm to the sport. It also provides new competitors for him to face, such as the 2023 ASC champion and World’s Strongest Man winner, Mitchell Hooper. Hooper and Björnsson have never faced off in a strongman contest. In his video, Björnsson referred to Hooper as “the best in the world.”
The remaining members of the 2024 ASC roster for both contests have yet to be announced at the time of this article’s publication. If Hooper and 2022 champion Martins Licis both enter the field for the contest in Columbus, then those three men would represent the winners of the last five ASC contests.
Featured image: @thorbjornsson on Instagram
