On Friday, October 26th, 14 of the best professional strongman athletes competed in the first ever World’s Ultimate Strongman competition that took place in Dubai. Familiar names topped the ranks at this competition, and to say the competition was action packed would be an understatement.
The competition hosted a ton of big named athletes such as: Hafthor Bjornsson, Brian Shaw, Zydrunas Savickas, Martins Licis, Mateusz Kieliszkowski, Terry Hollands, Iron Biby, JF Caron, Laurence Shahlei, Luke Stoltman, Matjaz Belsak, Tom Stoltman, Robert Oberst, and Konstantine Janashia, so yeah, this competition was absolutely stacked.
These athletes competed in six events over the span of the one day competition in hopes of obtaining the top prize payout of $75,000 USD. The six events included a ton of strongman favorites and are listed below in the order of their performance,
- Truck Pull
- Arm over Arm Pull
- Silver Dollar Deadlift
- Yoke Walk
- Press Medley
- Atlas Stones
Every athlete performed exceptionally well over the six event competition and heading into the final event four-time World’s Strongest Man Brian Shaw and 2018 World’s Strongest Man Hafthor Bjornsson were sitting neck-and-neck.
Before beginning the final sixth event, The Atlas Stones, Bjornsson and Shaw were separated by less than one point. The stones event included a five stone medley and spanned from weights starting at 170kg and ending at 225kg, which made this the heaviest strongman stones event to date.
Shaw ended up clearing all five stones, while Bjornsson was only able to complete four. Although, after the judge’s deliberation of the six event competition, it was decided that Bjornsson would walk away with first place. Check out the final stones event below from Julian Howard (World’s Strongest Fan) YouTube channel.
https://youtu.be/2kl4-yP_YnU
The top three placing athletes can be seen below, along with their prize money.
- 1st – Hafthor Bjornsson – $75,000
- 2nd – Brian Shaw – $35,000
- 3rd – Mateusz Kieliszkowski – $15,000
We don’t know about you, but this competition has only got us more excited for the 2019 Arnold Strongman Classic. If you recall, these top three athletes’ placings above are pretty much identical to what we saw at the 2018 Arnold Strongman Classic (minus the fact that Kieliszkowski and Mikhail Shivlyakov tied for third).
Can Shaw reclaim his throne, or will Kieliszkowski edge out Bjornsson and Shaw? Time will tell! Hopefully all these athletes can remain healthy as the season progresses.
Feature image from @thorbjornsson Instagram page.