A Response to Fans About the 2012 Arnold Strongman Classic Events and Contestants

Over the past couple of weeks I've received a number of emails from fans of the Strongman sport questioning some of our choices about contestants, events, or both.  Naturally, I and my committee take this questioning seriously and I thought the easiest way to provide answers would be to do it through this website as well as the main website of the Arnold Sports Festival. I've informed everyone who emailed me about our choices that I'd do my best to answer all of their questions at the same time and on a public site. 

Some of the emails suggested that it was a mistake not to have invited Terry Hollands, who finished third in the most recent WSM contest.  First, I think it's fair to note that in last year's ASC - which of course is a much better predictor for the following ASC than is the WSM - Terry placed next to last overall and never placed above sixth in any event.  (The only man he beat was Sergeii Romanchuk who, by the way, is not being considered for this year's event and has never been considered for the 2012 event, contrary to sites who failed to check their facts.)  Perhaps this happened because Terry came to the 2011 ASC with a pre-existing injury even though we have always made a point of asking our competitors to let us know if they've injured themselves so we can have a chance to get a good replacement.  On several occasions, in fact, when an invited athlete has told us he was hurt we thanked him for his candor and gave him a rain-check for a future contest.  However, even though Terry's having failed to inform us left a bad taste in the mouths of some of our officials - especially the one who had asked him after he arrived in Columbus if he had an injury - we have not eliminated him from the list of those we are considering.    In fact, we suspected that he'd enter the FitExpo contest next weekend and perhaps earn his place by winning there.  What's more, even though he decided not to come to the LAFitExpo event,  he's still among those on our short list.  Terry's a very able Strongman, but so are several other as-yet-uninvited men.  Please note that that we have not yet invited all the competitors for 2012.

The invited competitors who were mentioned in some of the emails as being less able than Hollands - besides Romanchuk - were Koklyaev, Magnusson, and Bjornsson.  As for Koklyaev, not only has he generally performed with distinction and flair at our event in the past, he has officially snatched 462 and cleaned and jerked 552.  Consider those numbers.  For those who haven't followed the ASC from the beginning, our committee always made it clear that we wanted to have a Strongman competition which would also be open to top men from WL and PL - the other two premier "strength sports, and Misha is a genuinely elite lifter over the past decade or so.  As things turned out, most of the best men in those two sports over the years have declined our invitations - perhaps because they didn't feel they had the time to train the events or because they were concerned about an injury or losing face against the giants who now rule Strongman.  In somewhat the same way, we invited Benedikt Magnusson this year because he's the greatest superheavy deadlifter in history.  Furthermore, when he was injured prior to a recent ASC he wrote to inform me of the injury so I thanked him for helping us to have a better contest and told him I'd give him a rain-check which he could cash when he felt he was back to full strength.  He's feeling it, and we'll see how he does in early March.

Hafthor Bjornsson was invited in part because I was told that Matesz Baron - who had an automatic invitation because he won the "Amateur" contest at last year's Arnold Sports Festival - had sustained an injury, and because Hafthor (Wouldn't "Thorandahaf" or "Two-Thor" be more appropriate for a man of 6'10" and midway between 400 and 500 pounds?) had finished second to Baron.  I should add that at this point I've gotten conflicting information about Baron's injury.  (I've asked Dione Wessels, who directed the amateur contest in which both men competed, to determine his true status.)

On to the Events…

First, I'd urge everyone who hasn't read the description of the events for this year - which are listed on these two sites and others as well - to do so as it might help anyone to imagine what we're asking our prodigious athletes to do.  The main focus of the comments I've received has had to do with doing two partial lifts - (1) using our Apollon's Wheels at a fixed weight to do repetitions from the floor to the shoulders, and (2) doing reps from the shoulders up with a "log" made of a lot of wood and a little metal.  One man wrote to say that both of these events would be "boring," which seems an odd argument since to my knowledge this will be the first time the Wheels will be lifted only to the top of the chest/shoulders - which for most people is more difficult than lifting them from the shoulders to arms' length.  One thing our committee always considers is the request we receive annually from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jim Lorimer, who coordinates the vast Sports Festival for Arnold,  Their request is that they want us to keep the events fresh for the audiences as well as for the athletes.  Thus our basic philosophy has been the same since 2002, which is to stay within the basic format of the contest but to also introduce a new event or events or to modify old events so that they provide new challenges to the athletes and entertaining, novel events for the throngs who crowd the stage to watch our human derricks perform.  And it goes without saying that at the heart of our efforts is a shared desire to create and implement events which test brute strength and reveal which of our contestants is the strongest man.  I believe our record over the past 11 years speaks for itself. 

Terry Todd
Director, Arnold Strongman Classic 
director@arnoldstrongmanclassic.com