Quick on the tails of this year’s World’s Strongest Man competition has seen stage three of the Giant’s Live tour.  Having already made outings in England and Australia the competition headed to Norway last weekend to crown the World’s Strongest Viking. 

The first event was a 25kg sword hold for time.  Holding events are usually an unknown in strongman with well-known favourites often slipping up and the, relative, unknowns sneaking into first and second positions.  The hold was won by Sweden’s David Nyström with a time of 1 minute 33 seconds (let us guess – you’ve not heard of him, right?)  beating out the likes of England’s Terry Hollands and World’s Second Strongest Man, Thor. 

David Nyström – 1:33 minutes Bjørn Andre Solvang – 1:23 minutes Hafþór Björnsson – 60.81 seconds Nicolai Hansen – 56.03 seconds Terry Hollands – 55.59 seconds Harri Peltonen – 53.56 seconds Rauno Heinla – 53.31 seconds Sebastian Davidsson – 49.00 seconds Mikkelsson Leicht – 48.53 seconds Kevin Larsen – 46.35 seconds Oyvind series – 41.88 seconds

Next up was a 900kg harness sled pull.  Pretty good going moving it any distance on a snowy surface – whilst some of the field failed to budge it, Thor managed to prove his worth and his second place WSM position by being the only athlete to complete the full course.  Close behind was fellow WSM competitor, Terry Hollands who managed a distance of 15.11 metres. 

1.  Hafthor Björnsson – 26.06 seconds 2.  Terry Hollands – 15.11 metres 3.  David Nyström – 7.26 metres 4.  Rauno Heinla – 7.25 metres 5.  Sebastian Davidsson – 3.60 metres 6.  Nicolai Hansen – 2.57 metres 7.  Bjørn Andre Solvang – 2.14 metres 8.  Kevin Larsen – 2.00 metres 9.  Mikkel Leicht – 1.40 metres 10.  Oyvind Rien – 70 cm 11.  Harri Peltomaa – 0 cm

130kg log lift for repetitions in 60 seconds was the next event on the cards.  Notably lighter than most international-level competitions and so a proper endurance event for the topflight athletes. 

David Nystrom – 10 reps Hafþór Björnsson – 10 reps Mikkelsson Leicht – 9 reps Rauno Heinla – 8 reps Terry Hollands – 7 reps Bjørn Andre Solvang – 7 reps Nicolai Hansen – 6 reps Harri Peltonen – 2 reps Sebastian Davidsson – 1 rep Kevin Larsen – 1 rep Oyvind Rien – 0 reps (injured bicep)

After the log lift saw the strongmen complete a loading race.  70kg, 80kg, 90kg, 100kg rocks had to be loaded before finishing with a 110kg wooden block. 

Hafþór Björnsson – 31.50 seconds Sebastian Davidsson – 35.81 seconds Rauno Heinla – 37.44 seconds David Nystrom – 38.29 seconds Terry Hollands – 41.19 seconds Bjørn Andre Solvang – 42.16 seconds Mikkel Leicht – 44.33 seconds Kevin Larsen – 50.89 seconds Nicolai Hansen – 4 objects in 31.91 seconds Harri Peltonen – 4 objects in 49.86 seconds

There was a cut of athetes to the top 8 at this point before proceeding with the next event, the pole push.  This one always favours the heavyweights and with Thor up against Nystrom in his heat there was no suprise as to who was going to win that one. 

Hafþór Björnsson – 11 points Mikkelsson Leicht – 10 points Sebastian Davidsson – 8.5 points (joint 3rd) Terry Hollands – 8.5 points (joint 3rd) 5th Bjørn Andre Solvang – 8.5 points (joint 4th) 5th Rauno Heinla – 6.5 points (joint 4th) 7.  David Nystrom – 3.5 points (joint 5th) 7.  Nicolai Hansen – 3.5 points (joint 5th)

As usual, atlas stones were to finish the competition.  Slightly more unusually it was only going to be two reps of the same 170kg stone over a wooden fence. 

Hafþór Björnsson – 12.40 seconds Mikkelsson Leicht – 14.91 seconds Terry Hollands – 15.34 seconds Bjørn Andre Solvang – 17.09 seconds David Nystrom – 18.32 seconds Nicolai Hansen – 20.81 seconds Rauno Heinla – 20.90 seconds Sebastian Davidsson – 29.09 seconds

Final results:

Hafthor Björnsson – 62.5 points David Nyström – 49 points Terry Hollands – 48 points Rauno Heinla – 42.5 points Bjørn Andre Solvang – 42 points Mikkel Leicht – 40 points Sebastian Davidsson – 37 points Nicolai Hansen – 27.5 points Harri Peltomaa – 13 points Kevin Larsen – 12.5 points Oyvind Rien – 12 points

Thor unsuprisingly took the title but a very impressive performance by David Nyström saw him take a solid second place in front of England’s Terry Hollands.  At 130kg bodyweight and with a 200kg+ log press there might be a lot more to come from Nyström this year. 

Our thanks to http://maxstyrka.se/2014/04/reportage-varldens-starkaste-viking-2014/ for the results and photos.