SERBIA: Strongmen from ten countries gather in Serbia for the 'Strongman Champions League' contest

Record ID: 856609

  • Title: SERBIA: Strongmen from ten countries gather in Serbia for the 'Strongman Champions League' contest
  • Date: 9th May 2012
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Serbian) MEMBER OF AUDIENCE DRAGAN MALETIN FROM NOVI SAD, SAYING: "They are all interesting. They are all perfect and very hard. For ordinary people they are perfect, by which I mean they do things which are impossible for us to perform."
  • Embargoed: 24th May 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Serbia
  • City:
  • Country: Serbia
  • Topics: Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA7JU090VM6U9UVIFE4V0YFIEO1
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  • Story Text: The strongman competition featuring strength athletes from ten countries competing in six events including pulling a bus with a rope was held in Novi Sad in northern Serbia.
    The competition is part of the Strongman Champions League circuit held annually in various cities around the world since its launch in 2008. The event at Novi Sad was the third competition of the 2012 season calendar.
    The competition in Novi Sad featured strongman athletes from Iran, UK, Australia, Austria, Estonia, South Africa, Ukraine, Hungary, Slovenia.
    They competed in six events designed to test each competitor's strength and endurance, including bus pulling - in which they had to pull an empty passenger bus with driver, and a viking press, which involves lifting a 165-kilogram log as many times as possible.
    "I am not satisfied with my achievement today. Three categories were very good but another three were very bad. I think I need to train more and I can develop much further from here," Hungarian competitor Akos Nagy, who finished ninth overall, said.
    The audience warmly welcomed and enthusiastically supported all the athletes. The competition attracted several thousand spectators who came to witness competitors' spectacular feats of strength.
    "They are all interesting. They are all perfect and very hard. For ordinary people they are perfect, by which I mean they do things which are impossible for us to perform," audience member Dragan Maletin from Novi Sad said.
    Strongman athletics are said to have their origins in traditional events such as the Highland Games in Scotland, and evolved into a televised sport in the late 1970s. The Strongman Champions League, established in 2008, is one of several strongman competition circuits and consists of about a dozen competitions held every year, with an estimated television viewership of around 800 million.
    "Everybody wants to see who is the strongest, who is the fastest and so on. So this is the sport where you can see who actually is the strongest athlete in the world," referee and director of Strongman Champions league Ilkka Kinnunen said.
    The competition in Novi Sad has been won by local fans' favourite, Serbian Ervin Katona, the reigning 2011 Champions League winner.
    "I am last year's winner of the Champions League, and of course, I expected to win. It is always easier at home, and I am also more motivated in competitions which take place here (in Serbia). In any case, if I had not won I wouldn't have felt good, so for me only first place is acceptable," competition winner Ervin Katona said.
    Katona, cheered on by an enthusiastic home crowd, won four out of six events. UK's Terry Hollands and Estonia's Lauri Nami finished second and third overall.
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