Britain's Strongest Man 2007

[Steve Gardener]

Yesterday Mike and I, along with Nick and H attended BSM 2007 to support one of the lads we train with who'd made it through to the finals Laurence Shahlehi. I took along my trusty camera:


Deadlift.

Mark Westerby: I spoke to Mark and he said he'd torn or (his words) 'frayed' a nerve in his shoulder the day before and was in some pain. Big old lump he is 'n all.


Jimmy Marku: Note the last barrel being held as his had a 'no rep' call on the one which had just been loaded and so needed to do the attempt again


Darren Sadler, while not tall, packs a lot of muscle onto his already lean frame


Terry Holland: I've just found out that Terry beat Mark Felix to win BSM for 2007. You can see Terry's full 6'6" and 400+ lbs to full effect here.

[Steve Gardener]

Car carry
A stripped out 400-kilos Citroen Paxo was used. The straps, althouh adjusted for the athletes seemed, in some cases, to be set in such a way that they were nigh on squatting to parallel. Quite a trick with 400kg.


Loz: here he is hamming it up for our ugly mob before setting off. 4 athletes completed the course and of those that did not Loz was nearest to the line (so 5th place)

Farmers walk with anvils (125kg each)


Here you see Mark Felix (L) and Terry Holland neck and neck. Loz had been ahead of the lot when an error 3 steps out caused him to drop to 5th. Terry was behind Mark off the turn and RAN with the 250-kilos to get ahead again causing Mark to make an error and won by .5 of a second.


Jimmy on the right and Jay Hughes on the left set off on their attempt. Check out Jay's 'hulking' traps.


Chris Innes and our very own Loz set off as well. As above if Loz hadn't caught himself with the anvil and faltered so close to the finish he'd have had 1st place.

[bigloz]

just a little report on my time at BSM

group stage

event 1 carry and drag 2nd place 25secs

event 2 115kg log lift 7reps 4th place

event 3 Deadlift 4reps 2nd place (tel did 4 but in a faster time) this was my best performance of the comp as only 4guys did 4reps and thye other 3 can all dead over 360kg.

event 4 farmers for distance 2nd (it was enough for 2nd but very poor for me. I have 2 say that these are the most horible famers ive ever used.

event 5 Fingers 2nd place 4 fingers.

event 6 stones. all 5 in 33secs (first time ive done all the stones in a comp)

Terry won every event in the heats. I knew he was going 2 win the whole event after watching him in the heats.

The Final

event 1 125kg farmers 50meters

i was 6th but if it wasnt for a stupid mistake i would have been 2nd at worst.

event 2 Car walk

5th - im not ba at the yoke so thought i would finnish this easy but the strap sliped off after a few meters so i had 2 pick it up again which took alot out of me. Next time im going all the way.

event 3 Deadlift - 4reps 5th place. we all know it but i will say it again. Mark felix is a deadlift king.

after the 1st day i was in 6th place 5points ahead of 7th and 2 points away from 5th.

4th event was the tyre

i tore my bicep and that was that.

jimmy was outstanding on the log with 13 reps, and terry put in another great performance on the stones 2 win BSM 2007.

im really pleased for terry.

As for me, im upset with a few things like the mistakes on the farmers and car walk but i did my best and if the i sisnt get hurt i think i would have ended up in 5th or 6th place.

still 8th in Britains at my first attempt is ok.

All the guys were awsome and did very well to compete in the conditions. its very different 2 a normal comp.

im going 2 recover and then i will be training hard 2 finnish in the top 3 next year.

its been a great experiance for me and i want 2 thank everyone for there support.

Loz

[davidhorne]

Great photos and write up!

David

[stewartjordan]

Great write up and pics, congrats to you in your first BSM and of course to Terry for the overall result.