Oleksiy Novikov
Oleksii Novikov (, , born 11 February 1996) is a Ukrainian professional strongman. He won the 2020 World's Strongest Man competition, becoming the second Ukrainian World's Strongest Man winner after Vasyl Virastyuk who won in 2004. In 2022, he won Europe’s Strongest Man, despite serving in the military for Ukraine. Biography. He was born and raised in Kyiv. He is currently a student of Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics. Career. 2016–2022. Novikov has been the winner of Ukraine's Strongest Man every year from 2016 to 2019. He burst onto the international stage in 2019 , finishing in 38th place in the Strongman Champions League. In 2018, he won the Arnold Amateur Strongman World Championships, which was his next big breakthrough performance. Through this, he qualified for the 2019 Arnold Strongman Classic, where he would place 7th overall. Following this in April 2019, he won the Arnold Strongman Classic South America, where he would qualify for the 2020 Arnold Strongman Classic. He beat Mateusz Kieliszkowski by just 0.5 points, making it one of the tightest finishes in a strongman competition since the 2014 World's Strongest Man, where Zydrunas Savickas beat Hafthor Bjornsson by the same  amount. Novikov even won the Arnold Strongman Classic Africa, which took place in May that same year. In June of 2019, Novikov competed at his first World's Strongest Man contest. He went head-to-head against the 4-times World's Strongest Man, Brian Shaw. However, Brian came out on top by two points, while Novikov had to enter the stone-off, where he would miss out on his qualifying chances against Charles Mitchell III (Trey Mitchell). However, this would not be the last time we see Oleksii at W.S.M. He would also compete in the 2019 Arnold Strongman  Classic Europe, where he would place 2nd overall, and he would also compete at World's Ultimate Strongman for the first time later in September that same year, where he would place 5th overall. 2020. Starting in 2020, he placed 5th overall in the Arnold Strongman Classic, which was an improvement over his performance the year prior. Later that year in May, Novikov took part in the first season of the World's Ultimate Strongman Feats of Strength series to set a world record for the Giant Dumbbell for Reps. Novikov set the world record at 11 repetitions. In November , taking full advantage of the absence of perennial favourite Mateusz Kieliszkowski and defending champion Martins Licis, both of whom did not compete due to injury, Novikov won his first ever World's Strongest Man title in Bradenton, Florida, becoming only the second man to win the competition at just 24 years of age after Jón Páll Sigmarsson in 1984 who was a few months younger. In the Max 18-inch Deadlift event, Novikov set a new world record by lifting . Later in December 2020, Oleksii participated in the first ever annual Shaw Classic, where he placed 3rd overall. 2021. Novikov  won the two World's Ultimate Strongman shows that occurred this year the first in Bahrain (13th of March) and the second in Dubai (18th of September). Novikov also won Giants Live (Strongman Classic) in Royal Albert Hall, London on 24 July. However, at the 2021 World's Strongest Man, he ended up finishing a disappointing fourth in his heat and failed to qualify for the final. In so doing, he became the first World's Strongest Man reigning champion to compete at the following year's event and fail to qualify for the final since Magnús Ver Magnússon in  the 1997 competition, nearly a quarter of a century prior. Novikov ended the 2021 strongman season by placing third at the first Strongman Rogue Invitational. 2022. Novikov placed second at the 2022 Arnold Strongman Classic. He later won Europe’s Strongest Man 2022, despite having limited training accessibility due to partaking in the draft for Ukraine.