MLO STRONGMAN CHAMPIONS LEAUGE NORWAY – WORLD’S STRONGEST VIKING 2018
It’s January, one of the longest and dullest months of the year. Christmas is over. All the lights are gone, all the festivities are over, there are little money left on the bank account because pay day was earlier in December and you had to buy a shitload of Christmas gifts. It’s hard to motivate yourself to do more than lying on the sofa, watching bad series and eat junk, even though you know that you should’ve been at the gym, lifting heavy shit and become stronger.
Note J.F Caron has stepped down from the contest and a replacement athlete will be announced soon.
Well, for most of us January is like this. For a handful of strong men from all over the world, January is the opposite. For those 14 men, January is the month where they train a bit harder than normal, where they eat a bit more, because for these men, January is the month were they’re going to Norway to compete in MLO Strongman Champions League Norway – World’s Strongest Viking 2018.
As the last four years, World’s Strongest Viking 2018 will be held at Fefor High Mountain Hotel, 930 meters over sea level. The hotel is placed in the middle of a beautiful mountain landscape, with view over Feforvatnet, a lake where there might live a sea monster or two. If you look closer, you can see reindeer looking for moss on the other side of the lake, and if you turn to your right you might see one of the trolls living in Dovrefjell.
This is a cool place to have a competition, isn’t it?
Even cooler is it that this hotel has a dedicated strongman arena, where all the equipment is built on site by locale craftsmen, and it’s made to look as tough as possible. The yoke is made of timber logs, and it is so difficult to walk with that grown men has cried over it. They viking press is also made from timber logs, and it’s loaded with hay balls to make it heavy enough. The stones are solid granite, and if you should be so lucky that you get a loading medley or similar in a comp, the implements to be loaded will be natural stones and timber logs.
The hotel also gives you the best food there is, and over the years they have learned that strongmen need loads and loads of food, so the staff in the kitchen make sure that there are plenty of food all the time.
As always, the backdrop for this competition is vikings. Beautiful viking women, fierce viking warriors, viking merchants and blacksmiths, handcrafters and trolls. Yep, there will be a real troll up there, and he will give y’all real viking games together with Lekegoden, just like the vikings played them back then.
This truly is the place to be the last weekend of January every year.
Ok … let’s talk about the competitors. 14 men from all over the world will be gathered up in the Norwegian mountains to fight for the viking axe and the title. Some has competed for MLO Strongman Champions League for years, others are brand new to the game. The newest of them all to SCL is the big American with the pink mohawk, Justin Fisher. According to Mr. Fisher he’s used to work outside in the cold and the snow, so we are anxious to see whether he can handle the cold in the Norwegian winter mountains as good as he says he will do.
Two times World’s Strongest Viking, JF Caron, is back to defend his title. He knows how to handle the cold weather, and when you see him compete outside in just a t-shirt, you actually might think that he likes the cold weather.
Note J.F Caron has stepped down from the contest and a replacement athlete will be announced soon.
Krzysztof Radzikowski is back as well, and I know for sure that he hopes there will be no stones this year. Well …that hasn’t been decided 100% yet, so we can’t promise you anything, Pan Radzikowski.
The big German, Dennis Kohlruss, has done two competitions at Fefor before, but that has been during the summertime, so it should be interesting to see if he handle the snow and wind as good as he handle the soft summer days.
The list of the competitors is as follow:
Krzysztof Radzikowski – Poland
Joachim Gustavsson – Sweden
Jon Olav Granli – Norway
Lucain Herrick – USA
Will Baggot – England
Sean O’Hagan – Ireland
Mika Törrö – Finland
Aivars Smaukstelis – Latvia
Christoffer Losen – Norway
Justin Fisher – USA
Alex Moonen – Holland
Richard Søyland – Norway
Dennis Kohlruss – Germany
There are seven events in this years World’s Strongest Viking. The first event will be held Friday night – outside, of course. All we know so far is that it will some kind of Crusifix Hold, and that it will be heavy.
The next six events will be held Saturday, and the first event is the famous Viking boat pull. A beautiful little Viking boat, filled with heavy stones and vikings will be pulled 82 feet as fast as possible. The boat itself isn’t too heavy, but the surface of ice and snow makes this pull really hard to do. We keep our fingers crossed for very cold weather, so the snow is packed hard. That makes a better surface than the softer snow.
The next event is Viking press. This implement weighs around 155 kg/341 lbs in hands, and are a good event. Max reps, of course, and with several good pressers in the start field, this will be exciting.
Third event is a team event, and so far, it’s a secret what it will be. But one thing is for sure; it will be something heavy and painful that will be carried for a long distance.
Fourth event is the Power stairs. Three heavy implements have to be carried up three high steps for the fastest time. This is a cool event to watch.
Fifth event is the Timber Yoke. 360 kg, so it’s not too heavy, but it’s wide and hard to balance, so this is a tougher event than you should think.
Then we have the sixth event of Saturday. Per today it isn’t decided if it should be stones or a loading medley. All we for sure can say is that it will be heavy, it will be hard and there are athletes that will complain about how hard it is to lift this and that in the snow and cold.
After the total of 7 events, the title of World’s Strongest Viking will be claimed by one athlete, that athlete will bring back home a beautiful handmade viking axe and a check. So we wonder; will JF Caron win his third title? Will Justin prove that he is capable to win? Or will the Dutch geography teacher, Alex Moonen, surprise everyone and take the title?
The best way to find out is to be there.
Ah … I almost forgot; who will win the afterparty? Who dares to take the challenges Lekegoden and his troll gives the athletes? Who will make chubby snow angels in the middle of the night? And who will stay awake until he has to leave Sunday morning?
Again; the best way to find out is to be there.
We are looking forward to this weekend, and we are looking forward to posting some live videos on the Facebook page of SCL Norway – World’s Strongest Viking 2018. And hopefully we will see you at Fefor January 26th and 27th, and if not, we hope you will come to the land of Vikings next January. Who knows; maybe YOU are picked out to fight the battle?
