EVERY YEAR, THE STRONGEST MAN ON EARTH
IS CROWNED IN THE DEFINITIVE STRENGTH COMPETITION,
THE ARNOLD STRONGMAN CLASSIC.
THIS IS THE STORY OF THE FOUR TOP CONTENDERS.
ONLY ONE CAN BE STRONGEST.
I want everyone here right now to think
about what Eddie Hall is going to go for.
I want you to channel your energy.
Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!
I just heard someone saying, "You ain't going to do it, Eddie."
Are you gonna do it? Come on, Eddie!
The power is within The Beast. Bring it out.
Right. This is it.
This is for all the money.
Eddie! Eddie!
1,026 pounds.
For the win.
BORN STRONG
This is the ultimate test for a strongman.
COLUMBUS OHIO, USA
It is the zenith, the peak. There's no greater accolade
than being chosen to be one of the 10 who compete here.
Ladies and gentleman, he comes from Stoke-on-Trent in England,
stands six-foot-two tall, 400 pounds.
He is a multiple British champion and Britain's Strongest Man.
Welcome out Eddie "The Beast" Hall!
EDDIE 6'3" - 400 LBS
People perceive Strongman as big, fat bastards
that drink beer and lift heavy weights.
That's so far from it. It's not just going to the gym.
It's getting up at 6:00 in the morning to force feed.
It's going to the gym at 7:00 in the morning to train.
It's coming back and force feeding again.
And then you're force feeding for dinner, force feeding for your second dinner,
and then you're going training again, doing weights,
and then you're gonna come back and force feed again.
There's so many factors to it. It is a complete life obsession.
ROUND 3 435 KG
2014. EDDIE HALL. LIFTS 435KG -NEW BRITISH RECORD
He gets it! It's a new British record!
You can put it down now, Eddie. Eddie?
Eddie Hall, British record of 435, and he's still holding it.
2014. COMMENTATOR. CAROLINE PEARCE
-How does that feel? -Feels amazing.
It's all about work. If you work the hardest at it,
you will be number one.
This next man, the winner here last year.
You can be very proud of this American from Colorado.
Six-foot-eight, weight unknown.
Brian Shaw!
BRIAN 6'8" - 425 LBS
I thrive off of competing.
I have to compete in something. I have to.
I don't know how anybody could live their life without being competitive.
2015 ARNOLD STRONGMAN CHAMPION
I feel like right now I'm getting into the prime of my career.
I'm the number one Strongman in the world.
Brian has tasted it, you know?
All of the rewards and stuff are great, but with Brian,
MARK HENRY FIRST ARNOLD STRONGMAN CHAMPION
Brian wants to prove to the other guys that he's better than them.
Brian Shaw's primary rival
for the title of the Strongest Man in the World is Zydrunas.
Zydrunas? He's Michael Jordan.
I'm pretty sure I can say this confidently,
but there's never been two competitors
that have gone back and forth like him and I, ever.
And here he is.
He needs two rooms for all of his trophies.
My most important title is seven times Arnold Classic champion,
four times World's Strongest Man, two times IFSA World Strongest Man,
four times Europe's strongest man, 14 times Lithuania's Strongest Man,
and more than 70 world records in different Strongman events.
Arguably the strongest man in history, he's known by one letter, Z.
Ladies and gentlemen, Zydrunas Savickas!
ZYDRUNAS 6'3-400 LBs
I think that age is going to catch Zydrunas a little bit this year.
Forty years old.
I watched him walk around the other day
and gave him the thumbs up, you feel good?
And he was like, uh.
And that's that old-man thing, you know?
It's like, uh, you get up, you make sounds.
Zydrunas is gettin' there.
Following up behind,
he's just about the biggest man on the planet.
He is a star in Game of Thrones on television.
Six-foot nine, 420 pounds.
He comes from the land of ice.
The Mountain, Hafthor Julius Bjornsson!
HAFTHOR 6'9-413 LBs
I'm willing to do whatever it takes to become the best.
I'm eating my six, eight meals a day.
It's crazy. I have to force my food down.
Hafthor, he's tired of being looked at as just the TV guy.
If eating shit would make me stronger, I'd probably do it.
Put your hands together for all of the athletes in today's competition.
In the history of the world, there have been strong men.
And it didn't matter how civilized we became,
we always admired power.
You know you had another 10 pounds in there.
-Yeah, at least. -I'm telling you.
Look at how pumped up you are. Ready to go.
Thank you very much. Very nice, very nice.
Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it. Eddie Hall!
Yeah!
In the old days, like 100 years ago,
they did a lot of the lifting in the beer halls.
Why? Because you didn't have to ask for spectators to come.
You had hundreds of people drinking beer,
eating chicken, eating meat, whatever else they were doing.
And there, they were doing the lifting.
The beer hall would give them an area, and they said, "You guys lift there."
Our people enjoy watching you and enjoy these powerful, monstrous guys,
and they enjoy being watched,
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER MR. OLYMPIA - 8K
because in the end, you always do everything for showing off, right?
And so out of that evolved then the much more organized Olympic lifting.
I wanted to have it be part of the Arnold Classic,
to promote it, because I grew up with those pictures in the beer halls.
To me, to celebrate Strongman is a natural thing to do.
STOKE ON TRENT ENGLAND
Probably every man's alpha male dream to become the World's Strongest Man,
and if you don't want that title, you're lying to yourself in some deep way.
I mean, everyone would love to have a title like that.
It's the ultimate title.
You've got the fastest man in the world.
The fattest man in the world.
But in my opinion, the strongest man in the world is the ultimate title.
My journey began when I was five years old,
EDDIE HALL BRITAIN'S STRONGEST MAN - 2X
and my mom joined me into the local swimming club,
and that's when I began training.
When I was 12 years old, I was a national champion swimmer.
I was the best in the country, smashing British records.
HALL BREAKS MORE RECORDS. NEWCASTLE'S EDDIE HALL IS A FUTURE STAR
LOCAL LAD SWIM SENSATION
That's where I came into my own really. That's when my frame sort of built up.
I grew up in a niche little town called Stoke-on-Trent.
It's a pretty rough place.
Probably in terms of, you know, the unemployment and crime and drugs,
Stoke-on-Trent's right up there. It's one of the worst places to live.
I'm not proud of it, but I was expelled from high school,
and I went into employment very early and at 16, I was a full-time employed.
I entered an apprenticeship being a truck mechanic.
I did that until I was 27.
You know, so, I've done a good 10, 11 years
of working 55, 60 hours a week,
and then training for 20 hours a week.
So, you know, I was really burning the candle at both ends.
When I first met him, he wasn't competing on the level he is.
He wasn't really winning. He wasn't the size he was.
ALEX HALL EDDIE'S WIFE
He didn't have his head down and thinking about Strongman every day.
It was something he was doing on the side.
STRENGTH ASYLUM
I think growing up in Stoke-on-Trent
has given me some sort of drive to sort of separate myself.
You know, I don't want to be the average guy from Stoke,
who just works nine to five and dies at 60, 70 years old.
When I first started out Strongman 10 years ago,
I had no idea where I'd be, you know, right now.
I tell you what did it for me is I pulled a world record dead-lift.
That was the turning point for me.
2015
So, it was that weekend that I quit my job.
Never went back to work and I became a pro Strongman.
That's when I started to believe.
I'm living the dream. I work for myself now.
Really, I'm living the dream.
They get upset when I hit him back, though.
Dad, don't! Dad, don't!
-Whatever. -Mine.
He could be very scary to some people, but I'm lucky enough to know him.
We love each other, so, I know how to deal with Eddie.
If I want my way, I'll get my way. I just take away his food.
I'll probably have a pizza as a starter.
Probably a steak and chips, or a steak and potatoes
for a main, and a pudding.
That'll do me until I have a second dinner in a couple of hours.
We probably do spend around $1,000 on food a week.
It's just continuous, you know?
Like a cow, you just graze all day every day
from the second you wake up to the second you have to sleep.
There's always something in my hand.
If you haven't got your food, right, Strongman is not for you.
If you can't eat, don't bother.
It's been a running joke in the family
that I've always been the same age as I am weight.
In England we measure weight in stones,
and a stone in English terms is around 14, 15 pounds.
When I was age five, I was five stone.
When I was 10, I was 10 stone. When I was 20, 20 stone.
And I'm 28 now, and I've just hit 28 stone,
which is just shy of 400 pounds in body weight.
So, in terms of, you know, have I always been a big guy, yeah.
You know, from a kid, I've been big.
Everything changed. Absolutely everything.
From going to a walk, from getting up in the morning,
to putting my socks on.
-Even to having sex, you know? -Eddie.
I'm that big now. She can't even fit her legs around me.
-Eddie! -You know, it's...
But, you know, we do it our own way, don't we?
We have fun.
But, you know, life definitely changed, you know? And it's for the better.
If you could be the best bodybuilder in the world,that's someone's opinion.
Someone says you look good, I think you're number one.
That's bullshit.
Whereas Strongman, you have to prove it.
You have to lift weights for reps to prove you are the strongest.
And when you do that no one can say, "You're not stronger than him."
Yes, I am, because I did seven reps and he did six.
This sport is about proving yourself.
That's it. It's pure. There's no bullshit.
There's no one to say, "I don't think you're the strongest man in the world."
I don't give a fuck what you think. For us, just to be the number one,
the strongest man in the world, it's just, it's complete madness.
So that means cooking all his meals, it means washing his clothes.
I know that's things that wives often will do,
but in the kind of volume you're doing it, his clothes are like bedsheets.
His meals are like, picnics for 20.
And he can't even put his own socks on, it's little things that you wouldn't...
-Oh, hang on a second, I can. -You can.
It looks like, have you ever seen a ladybird fall on its back?
Do you want sausages, babe?
I'm probably gonna have four. Max will have...
Two. Two.
Having that kind of weight is its own asset.
You want a lot of weight to move a lot of weight,
DAVID EPSTEIN AUTHOR - THE SPORTS GENE
but there's only so much muscle that a bone can support.
So, at some point, if you're going to be putting on more of that weight,
some of it has to be fat, right?
So, at some point to get good enough at certain strength activities,
it's a necessity that you start putting on fat.
In order to be the world's strongest man, you cannot have abs.
You have got to have a keg.
Do you want some or not?
-Shall I have my sausages back? -Yeah.
You're probably one of the most sensible ones, aren't you?
You know that once you have done
what you want to do once, you're gonna stop.
So, I'm not worried.
I could be if it was a different story,
if he wanted to do this until he was 60,
and if he was getting bigger the stupid way
by eating crappy foods and...
But you're not, are you?
Eddie has he's packed his weight on more quickly.
That makes me worry.
I think the more quickly you gain weight,
TERRY TODD, PH.D. CREATOR - ARNOLD STRONGMAN CLASSIC
the more difficult it is for your body to accommodate itself to the extra weight.
So, this is the exact same thing that we did before.
Do you need shirts off now?
Yeah, we're gonna take your shirt off, because after you're done resting here,
-she'll put the EKG on you. -OK.
He doesn't always wanna be this big. He doesn't wanna weigh this much.
He knows that he's in danger. It's a risk to him.
He doesn't think he could live for 10 years
if he stayed this heavy and kept lifting the way he's lifting.
I think he may be right.
And the fact that he's aware of it and he'll say it, that's important to me.
But what else I wondered could we do that might give some edge to the men
in terms of understanding their health better?
I contacted a friend of mine, professor at Ohio State, Bill Kramer,
and he got together a group of people there. We talked it over.
He said, you know, you could do a series of tests
and determine how all their bodily functions are working.
This is something we're simply offering to you
if you'd like to know a lot more about your body than you know now.
You can eat anything, really.
Obviously, being on the path that I've chosen,
I've got to be 400 plus pounds in body weight.
You know, there's guys out there, like Thor and Brian and Zydrunas
that are sort of a natural six-foot-eight, six-foot-nine,
Four hundred pounds in body weight.
So, I've got to be, being able to beat those guys, I've got to be those guys.
But that being said, I'm putting a little bit extra strain on my body.
Let's face it, you know, I'm 400 pounds in body weight.
I'm not gonna walk around for another 10 years at 400 pounds.
It's plenty simple, I'm gonna die.
He knows he's not gonna do this forever. He has a plan.
I need to walk away a champion,
and I'll be more than happy with that, as long as I win it once.
And I definitely won't completely quit the sport.
I'll definitely keep involved.
I will still train, for sure.
You know, I'll still wanna keep my body in good neck.
In all honesty, I'll probably take up another sport.
Ya know, whether it be fighting, bodybuilding.
No. No.
-No and no? -No.
It'll upset me talking about it.
What are you getting upset about, me being around more?
-Because of you. -Why?
-Because you won't. -I will.
You just said yourself.
I've just said I'll...
Start taking up something else.
Yeah, but I'll probably be much more time at home.
No.
-Yes. -You wouldn't. I know what you're like.
You wouldn't.
-I would. -No, you wouldn't though.
And you're not boxing. There's no chance, Eddie.
You're not boxing or bodybuilding. That's not happening.
-OK. MMA then. -No, you just be normal.
-I'll just do mixed martial arts. -No! No!
-How about tiddlywinks? -Yes, you can play tiddlywinks.
I can be a world tiddlywink champion!
-Yeah. -Just do something normal.
OK.
Eddie always has to be the best at everything.
And I think he's very lucky to have that mentality.
Growing up around here with my family, I've got two older brothers.
I think it's just human nature to want to be better than your siblings.
I was obsessed with that.
And I think that's something that's like a void that's...
I've got a hole deep inside me that I'm trying to fill, you know?
Obviously, I'm way surpassed my brothers in strength, obviously.
But now it's, I see those,
the Brian Shaws and the Thors have replaced my brothers,
and I want to beat them.
And I'm just trying to fill that void, you know?
And I won't feel satisfied until I do.
And this is what the obsession is,
is I will literally die trying to win the World's Strongest Man to prove that,
to prove that status. And I'll do anything.
In this day and age, with seven billion people on the planet
and a huge portion of people participating in sports,
you need more nature and nurture than ever before.
There's a greater sifting to find the most talented people
who then have to put in the most commitment
to separate themselves from the other most talented people.
So, we're drilling down to these incredible combinations
of nature and nurture, and every single one of these guys
represents a lottery win of nature and of nurture.
REYKJAVIK ICELAND
My name is Hafthor. Very Icelandic name.
"Haf" means "ocean".
"Thor" means "god". So, I'm an ocean god.
People really don't know that, but I am ocean god.
HAFTHOR BJORNSSON EUROPE'S STRONGEST MAN - 2X
When you think of a country like Iceland,
and you think about
what's been passed down in their psyche
that they identify with, Vikings, right?
These strong, brave...
I think the word "berserk" comes from the Viking tradition.
It has meaning of going into battle with your shirt off.
It was never the plan to go into Strongman and become who I am today.
It was just my destiny.
Back in 2009 when I started to compete in Strongman,
in my first competition, I broke an Icelandic record.
That day, when I broke the record,
I definitely realized that I was naturally strong.
I can keep on going even though it doesn't feel comfortable or good.
I have that.
Any young person who's aiming to be a strength athlete in Iceland
feels like part of a pipeline that is larger than their self.
And if you ask them what they're doing
and why they're doing it and why they're interested in it,
there's no way it's going to start and stop with,
oh, this is just something that I got into.
-Almost. -Well done.
So much of what goes into a country producing the tradition of greatness
is like storytelling in that culture.
There's no reason to be alive if you can't do dead-lifts.
Jon Pall Sigmarsson was competing in Huntly Castle.
STEFAN SOLVI PETURSSON HAFTHOR'S WORKOUT PARTNER
There's a competition called Strongest Man Alive
and Jon Pall won the dead-lift event,
and shouted out this sentence,
"there's no reason to be alive if you can't do dead-lifts."
There is no point in being alive if you can't do dead-lifts
JON PALI SIGMARSSON LIFTING AT 1005 LBS
One thousand and five pounds.
There's no reason to be alive if you can't do dead-lifts.
Ever the showman.
He really is incredible.
You've seen that tattoo on Hafthor, and our friend Andre?
They actually got it first.
Then we decided to get kind of like a friendship tattoo kind of thingy.
Every time I dead-lift now, I see the tattoo.
I remember him. And it gives me power.
Strongmen come in all shapes and sizes,
and this is why today you will see a lot of the strongmen,
like The Mountain, doesn't look so much like
an overweight guy, a massive guy.
He looks to me like a bodybuilder that is off season
but is just twice as big.
Normal chest measures around 40 inches, 44 maybe.
Yeah, it's about 62 or three.
He looks enormous. His arms are like this.
His neck is like this. His traps are down like this.
His deltoids are popping out. His pectorals.
And he has a very small waist.
And you say to yourself, wait a minute, where did this guy come from?
Well, this is the new kind of a look.
You don't have to be necessarily overweight, per se.
Some guys are, because they come from the Olympic lifting background,
from the power lifting background,
so they know they're putting their lifting belt on,
it gives them kind of a security around the waist
and all that stuff, but it's not necessary.
But it's great to see those monsters.
Twenty-two inches.
A regular neck is 15, 16?
It's probably the biggest neck I've seen in my life.
He thinks he's pretty.
I took him shopping, and he was like,
"Mark, how does this make me look?"
And I'm like, "You look like a six-nine, "420 pound fat guy now."
"I'm not fat, I still have abs."
I'm like, easy, brother, with the abs.
Get rid of the abs.
-There he is. -Yeah.
Feels nice, you know.
I feel like I wanna dance.
May I?
People are getting to know Iceland a bit more now these days.
Maybe a few years back, people thought about Iceland
as this cold ice place that's just ice everywhere
and Greenland as this green and beautiful.
Well, it's actually the opposite.
Iceland is more green, obviously in the summertime,
but we have also winter here,
and here in Iceland when the winter is,
it gets pretty harsh, you know?
It's windy, it's a lot of snow. Gets cold. More darkness.
I love it. It's not for everybody.
In Game of Thrones, they say, winter is coming.
I know this is hard for you, but winter is coming.
We know what's coming with it.
We Icelanders know how it feels to know that the winter is coming,
and what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.
At first, I got a phone call from the Game of Thrones
crew here in Iceland,
because they want to know if I was really as strong
as people was telling them.
So, they said, "Can you pick this guy up?"
Yeah, just, you know, it was just a regular guy.
Yeah, I can pick him up.
"OK, please do so."
I took him, I picked him up so easy.
They were so surprised. You know, whoa.
This can look good on TV.
Then I smash their head in like this!
I remember the day I start to film the fight.
I thought to myself, why am I not more nervous,
because all these people are, all these cameras,
and this is the first big thing I'm doing in my life, really.
When I came to this guy who was holding my sword,
when I saw him, how nervous he was,
just giving me my sword, that was his only job,
and I realized, oh, my God, I should be more nervous.
He was, like, shaking.
I was like, fuck, why am I not more nervous?
My fans around the world write me letters and ask me to sign them autographs.
So, I always come here and meet up with my dad,
we go over it, we read it together,
then he sends it for me because my busy schedule.
"Dear Mr. Bjornsson,
I'm 22 years old and I live in Poland.
I'm a student of University and my passion are films and sports.
I'm a big fan of Game of Thrones
and your character in this series was amazing.
Can you sign my photos with dedications
and send it back to me?
I can't wait for your reply."
Then he says, "Sorry for my bad English, but I'm still learning."
I'm also learning, so, it's OK.
Great.
So, I'm gonna sign this and send it back to him.
TRAINING TO FIGHT THE MOUNTAIN
I always wake up early in the morning and I always wake up super fresh.
The I eat... eat...
And yes, I eat some more.
And now I want to show you me new product.
This is my vodka.
Look! It's me.
Everybody loves the Icelandic Mountain Vodka.
What did you say?
I love the vodka! I love the vodka!
Everybody.
MOUNTAIN VODKA TRUE ICELANDIC VODKA
I look at Hafthor as having a lot to prove.
He wants to win because it will solidify him
as being what he really wants to be,
and that's the strongest man in the world.
He's not satisfied and that's what Strongmen are.
We have a passion like nobody in any other sport.
Strongman is not gonna make myself a good living
the rest of my life, for sure.
You can easily get very badly injured.
You know, I have a daughter, I have a family.
My life is busy.
I like my life that way.
You know, if I'm gonna fail and fail and fail,
I'll probably compete 20 more years until if I would reach the goal, you know.
I'm not gonna stop.
I am going to be the world's strongest man someday,
and I promise you that.
FORT LUPTON COLORADO, USA
I grew up in a small town, it's Fort Lupton, Colorado
and we had about 4,000 to 5,000 people in my hometown growing up.
The town has grown a lot since I was here, but there wasn't a lot of students.
BRIAN SHAW DEFENDING ARNOLD STRONGMAN CHAMPION
I mean, you pretty much, for the most part,
you knew almost everybody in the school.
What's up, man? How's it going?
-You doin' good? -You're Brian Shaw, right?
It's the first time I'm meeting you, man. Damn!
-You doin' good, man? -Yeah.
-Yeah. Awesome. -Didn't know you're that big.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
-You go to school here? -Ya.
This is a good moment, like, wow!
Well, thank you.
When you look at a world's strongest man,
he looks and carries around his success.
A soccer player has to go and do like,
boom, boom, boom, and kick and kick and boom,
and do the knees and the whole thing, then he can show off that he's good.
With a power lifter, you don't have to.
I mean, he is there, he's this monster, people looking up.
He shakes your hand, you say...
I've always been a big kid. My whole life I've been big.
I've been bigger than a lot of my friends,
and probably middle school, you know,
somewhere in there, I started to really realize
I'm a lot bigger than my classmates.
Sometimes I'm definitely reminded of his size or his strength.
I was planting flower pots and we were just kind of discussing,
What are we going to do at the end of the season to put them away?
Like, am I gonna have to dump all the soil out and buy new soil?
KERI SHAW BRIAN'S WIFE
And he's like, "Honey, I'm the World's Strongest Man.
I can just pick it up.
If we put an athlete like Brian next to someone like LeBron,
I mean, first of all, you'd notice how amazing it is
that LeBron would suddenly look like a normal human being.
I've stood next to LeBron James.
He's a big dude and to think about someone who's the same height
and one and a half times his weight is pretty remarkable.
It's great to see these monsters.
I mean, each one of these guys that go on stage,
you know, the guy that weighs 300 pounds
is considered the lightweight, right?
I mean, to me, I'm still looking up at this guy
and I say, "Oh, my God, this guy makes me look like this little louse."
But I mean, it's just amazing the power and how huge they are.
I'm probably about 425 now, something like that.
For a long time, I actually got in a bad place with the scale
because I was weighing myself too often.
In my mind, I started associating being heavier
with being stronger, and that's not necessarily the case.
It's almost a reverse anorexia kind of thing, you know what I'm saying?
It's kinda weird, you know. I think people have called it "bigorexia".
The eating is the hardest part of that for me
and the reason for that is that it's constant.
To be fair, it's just a lot of chewing and swallowing.
I try my best when I'm traveling to compete to take food that I need.
I'll have it with me, or I'll have it shipped there to my hotel.
Given the nature of your specific sport, everything boils down to two things
that I have to focus on for Brian Shaw,
ON THE PHONE BRIAN'S NUTRITIONIST
and that's number one, fuel, and number two, strength.
If you don't have the right fuel and you don't have the right energy,
it doesn't matter how strong we might have been able
to make you through your training.
It won't be there when you need to actually deliver on contest day.
Hello, Brian, you fat piece of shit.
ON THE PHONE EDDIE HALL
Well, that's not a very nice way to answer the phone, is it?
Well, I thought it was appropriate since we were good friends and everything.
-Yeah. -We are on that stage
that they call emotional take.
Oh, OK. Well, I guess it's fine then.
How are you doing, you fat piece of shit?
LOVE
ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE... AND A DOG
I'm all good, bro. I'm good.
How is your baby doing?
The baby is growing. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah? How big is it? For a two year old...
It's gonna pop out as a toddler, yeah.
It says zero to three months, maybe he could wear it for like, a day.
This is a three-month foot.
I would be very proud of him, even if I bought these...
-If they didn't fit? -If they didn't fit. I'd be very proud.
A baby is something we both have wanted for a very long time,
and we're very excited about it,
but like every family, a child changes something.
Like other families, we're gonna lose sleep,
and, you know, I think our schedules are gonna get thrown off.
His lifting, his eating, his therapy,
that is his career.
Where a lot of people going to the gym
is what they do for fun, they do it after work.
But they can't skip out on work.
And so for Brian and I, he can't skip out on the gym
because that is his job.
He can't skip out on eating, because that is his job.
Probably me only role model to sort of copy
in the Strongman world would be Brian Shaw.
I've never seen such a professional athlete in all my life.
I've never seen someone be so dedicated
and straight-laced on everything he does.
There's no nights off from Brian.
He won't sway off from training or his recovery side of things.
That's commendable.
There's not many guys that could do that in the world.
I don't like to lose at anything. At anything.
I mean, your board games.
I mean, just name it, and I just absolutely just despise it.
I can't deal with it and that's just how I've been since I was a kid.
When you trying to be the strongest man on the planet,
and I've been blessed to be one of those guys,
I know how much work goes into it.
Like, you cease to almost have a life.
To be able to be that guy should fuel you
and I think that you'll see in every competitor
in the Arnold Classic that fuel and that drive to be number one.
VILNIUS LITHUANIA
Lithuania was occupied by Soviet Union.
I was 15 years old.
Occupied is mean that you must learn occupant language in school.
It mean that you can't go through the border.
ZYDRUNAS SAVICKAS ARNOLD STRONGMAN CHAMPION - 7X
You must stay always in your area.
Everything was gray.
Buildings was gray. Everything was gray.
No colors, nothing.
It's very sad life. You live like in big prison.
Gyms, bodybuilding, and Strongman sport was not allowed.
I always dream about life in free country.
We all grow up in a certain way.
I grew up very poor because I was born after the Second World War
and we had famine and starvation, we had misery,
and we were just beaten by the allied forces,
and Austria was like, crushed by Russia and all this kind of things.
So, it was a terrible time to grow up,
but, when I went in the gym working out,
I always said it didn't matter anymore how much money you had,
from what kind of a background you came from.
Are you coming from a royal background
or do you come from a rich background
or do you come from a privileged background?
Nothing mattered.
The 150 pounds on the barbell was as heavy for the rich kid than for me.
Years where we got independence, Strongman sport came that time.
It was part of freedom.
And I start Strongman sport when we got independence.
And now we are live in nice country with happy people,
with nice nature, colorful buildings.
JURGITA ZYDRUNA'S WIFE
I see him as a very bright man.
He owns a series of, I don't know, four or five gyms,
and he owns quite a bit of real estate.
To be World's Strongest Man,
enough to lift weights two, three hours per day,
but we have 24 hours.
So, I need to do something more.
I am politician also. I visit at over 80 countries
and I got lot of ideas what we can do better in Lithuania.
I was elected for Vilnius City Council for four years.
I am planning to participate in a parliament election.
I felt like I had an equal starting point here
and so this is why I went in a direction of sport
because it felt like, OK, here I have an opportunity,
and later on, I can go and educate myself and that's exactly what I did.
I went and I crushed them all
and I trained and trained and trained five, six hours a day.
At 19, I became second Mr. Universe.
At 20, I would become the youngest Mr. Universe
and then at 21, a second time Mr. Universe,
and then winning, winning, winning, winning,
and then I came to America with this success.
And here, I was celebrated.
Here, I could make all of a sudden a living from all of that.
But it was the sport...
that gave me the opportunity that opened up the doors
and that is really what we want to celebrate.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was my inspiration.
I start training by Arnold Schwarzenegger training programs.
2003
Most important victory in my all Strongman career
is first time Arnold Classic Champion title.
It was 2003, and my dream was compete in the Arnold Classic
and meet Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It's just extraordinary to see all these monsters.
Hey, congratulations. That was very extraordinary.
Fantastic. Record breaking. Really good. It was good, yeah.
I'd say I must win today and I won that competition.
It was big, big thing for me
and then I believed that I can be really strong and can be strongest.
Power lifting, weight lifting, bodybuilding, and all of those sports...
makes you feel equal.
We are in Vingis Park.
This is very special place for Lithuanian Strongmen.
It was one of the first big competitions in Lithuania.
It was Lithuanian Strongest Man. I saw that competition on TV
and I decided I want to be Strongman as well.
And I train now under the seats
for this year Arnold Classic.
This is very good energy in this place and I feel Lithuanian power.
I train alone because it's harder.
When we coming to stage and it's thousand people,
they give you lot of energy
and weights are lighter and you can lift more.
Where I train, it's harder, it's colder,
and I think it must be in training harder than in competition.
There's a huge advantage to doing this
in a sustained way over a long period of time
because what you're ultimately doing is completely rebuilding your physiology
and that takes time to do
because you can only do it a little bit at a time.
I feel very young.
When I start Strongman sport, I was 16 years old.
I was child. I feel almost same, like I'm now 40.
He might look like the same guy on the outside,
but inside, he's a completely different machine
than he was when he started this, and even than he was five years ago.
It's only one way to get stronger, to get more muscles.
There's also a term you might hear sometimes called old man strength.
There is no shortcut to it.
No 18-year-old is coming up behind you.
They can't be.
I like to train. I like to compete.
I want to win.
And nothing changes, just I getting stronger
and stronger and have more experience.
You know, this is what it is all about.
Is that you find something that makes you,
that elevates you, that makes you feel special,
and that's what weight lifting, power lifting and sports in general do,
this is what power lifting is also about.
They come from poor countries, those guys.
They come from miserable backgrounds.
But then when they lift, they feel good.
I am strongest because I work hardest.
I train hardest.
And I'm born to be strong.
You can lift and make lifts other places and people will respect those lifts,
but if you won it at the Arnold,
that mean that you got tempered by the hottest fire.
There's not one Strongman, they lyin' they ass off if they tell you,
COLUMBUS OHIO, USA
"Oh, I didn't make it, it's OK. I'll go to so-and-so competition."
It's not. The Arnold is it.
The Super Bowl, the NBA Championship,
the Olympics of Strongman lifting.
How's everyone doing?
Four men over 400 pounds competing in this years' Arnold Strongman Classic.
The 15th year.
Now, guys, what's going on here over the whole weekend,
all the events will be added together. Ten points for the winner of each event.
Ten men in the event and so on and so forth.
THE DEADLIFT EVENT 1 OF 5
Now just for fun, what are we at at the moment here?
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven plates.
Seven a side, 14 plates.
That's coming in around 700 pounds.
700 pounds is gonna be the starter.
All of our lifters surely can take that kind of weight off the ground.
BILL KAZMAIER. COMMENTATOR STRONGMAN CHAMPION. COLIN BRYCE. ANNOUNCER.
It's just a matter of strategy. They only get three lifts.
700 LBS
Get your cameras out folks, here we go!
The way the contest works is, you call your opening weight,
then you call your second weight, and you call your third weight.
So, you can only ever go up.
It's like you're bidding at a silent auction or something.
750 LBS
The dead-lift is very much like a game of chess.
You have to make the right moves at the right times,
and then at the end of all that,
you have to be strong enough to back those moves up.
I'm afraid not. Put your hands together, folks.
Kaz, put your money down, brother. Who's gonna win?
Well, Eddie Hall's pulled the heaviest weight off the ground
in the last six months and year.
975 LBS
Up, up, up, up!
Boom!
846 LBS
Come on, Jim, it's hard.
Well, well, well. That's a no lift.
It's really wonderful to see those guys lifting 800 pounds
and then we'll go to 900 pounds. We're dealing here with monsters.
Thank you. Get to the chopper!
Zydrunas, get to the bar, baby.
Let's hear it for Zydrunas Savickas!
ZYDRUNAS SAVICKAS ARNOLD STRONGMAN CHAMPION-7X
Forty years old this year. Seven times the Arnold champion.
891 LBS
Up it goes.
A little bit tentative, I have to say.
Zydrunas, he's maybe not firing on all cylinders.
He did have some back problems last year.
When guys are dealing with this amount of weight,
any little mistake not only will inhibit their ability to move the weight,
916 LBS
but might rip their tendons and ligaments right off of their bones.
Come on, Zydrunas.
So as I said, he pulled that tentatively. That may be all he had in him.
If you're a big Z fan, don't panic.
Getting close to the mythical thousand.
961 LBS. 976 LBS
If I was gonna describe the dead-lift to somebody that's never lifted before,
HAFTHOR BJORNSSON EUROPE'S STRONGEST MAN - 2X
I would say it's a raw testament of your will,
not just your strength.
-Oh, yeah! Yeah. Come on! -Come on!
Hafthor Julius Bjornsson!
-Boom! -Are you kidding me?
The Mountain gives you a mountain of an effort.
Who really gets in the situation where in one moment to the next,
everything they've ever worked for,
you're gonna see if it's success or failure,
black and white, right now.
And where's The Beast?
Yes, we are still waiting for Eddie Hall to join this contest.
It's gonna be very interesting out of the gate
to see what Ed does.
I'm really curious to see what his weight choices are.
Eddie Hall, he's coming in at over a thousand pounds for his opener.
Are you kidding me?
There's only three men in history over 1,000 pounds.
That's a huge gamble for Eddie Hall.
The tendency is...
that you just wanna write down a bigger number than everybody else has.
If you get a little overzealous
and you call too much, and you fail, you're done.
And there's a reason there's only been three guys
that have done a thousand pounds because it's hard to do.
He is the reigning Arnold Champion.
BRIAN SHAW DEFENDING ARNOLD STRONGMAN CHAMPION
He won the Arnold Australia.
He won the Arnold Brazil. He won the Arnold Columbus.
He won the World's Strongest Man. All in one year last year.
Is Brian Shaw gonna put on a show
to enter a very exclusive club,
1021 LBS
to become the fourth man in history to pull a thousand pounds?
Come on!
How about that? Brian Shaw!
Well within his range.
When you think of Brian Shaw,
you obviously see him as number one in the world.
I'm the hungry wolf at the bottom of the hill
climbing the hill and I wanna knock him off.
1,026 pounds to take it all.
1026 LBS (WORLD RECORD)
And that is Mr. Eddie Hall.
One of the greatest Olympians in British history was Mark Foster.
When Eddie Hall was 14 years old,
he destroyed Mark Foster's swimming records in Britain,
and then he decided to give up.
A few years later, a little lost in life, he found weight lifting.
EDDIE HALL BRITAIN'S STRONGEST MAN - 2X
And here he is now, folks.
For our pleasure. For his pleasure.
Do you wanna see the greatest lift ever in human history off the floor?
I want everyone here right now to think about what Eddie Hall is gonna go for.
I want you to channel your energy.
I just heard someone saying that you ain't gonna do it, Eddie.
Are you gonna do it? Come on, Eddie!
EDDIE HALL WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT - 1026 LBS
The power is within The Beast.
Bring it out!
1,026 pounds.
For the win.
Yes! Come on, Eddie!
Come on, Eddie! Up, up, up, up, up!
There you go.
The Arnold Schwarzenegger effect.
You did it again.
Every single time I see you, you break a world record.
How do you do it?
Well, I don't share records. That record's mine.
That's how I do it, I want it.
Fantastic, let's give him a big hand. The world record holder for the dead-lift.
Bravo. Fantastic.
Ladies and gentlemen, Eddie "The Beast" Hall!
Such a phenomenal performance.
I hope you people realize
you have seen history today on the Arnold stage.
This year at Nationals, Brian Shaw gave me
one of his peanut butter and honey sandwiches.
That's fucking love, that is, mate. That's love.
I wouldn't give him mine.
Now then, we have the Austrian oak to come.
LEADERS. EDDIE HALL 10. BRIAN SHAW 9.
JERRY PRITCHETT 8. HAFTHOR BJORNSON 7. ZYDRONAS SAVI 5.
Hi, babe. Are you all right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've just done the dead-lift and I've just won.
Did 1,023 pounds I think.
So, I won. Yeah.
Yeah. Thanks, babe.
Are you OK? What are you up to?
Oh, in bed. All right.
Well, listen, you get back to sleep. I love you.
I just wanted to let you know while it's fresh.
I know you like to know first thing.
OK, babe. Speak to you tomorrow. I love you.
Love you, bye.
Now Bill, we have the Austrian oak about to start.
THE AUSTRIAN OAK EVENT 2 OF 5
This is the big boy. Tell us a bit about it.
451 pounds.
It has to be taken through the legs, across the chest,
to the shoulders, and locked out.
Now, last year, there was a lot of men who came out
who were surprised they did not lift this.
It's only been done a couple of times
in the history of the Arnold Strongman Championship.
So, without further ado, I believe we're ready.
Guys, are you ready?
He knows he can do this.
Here we go!
Oh, so close. Oh, Brian.
You see Brian trying to convince himself.
He's trying to focus, he's trying to fire himself up
to be able to go and make that lift.
And it's just hard.
And, you know, I'm not saying that he's mentally unprepared.
It's a lot easier when you know this is what I was meant for.
This is my lift.
Is the world ready for Hafthor Bjornsson?
Mountain in Game of Thrones, but hey, he's the real deal.
Two-times Europe's Strongest Man.
He's been second in World's Strongest Man.
A former basketball player for Iceland before damaging his knee.
So, he took up the safe sport of Strongman.
Here we go. Come on, Hafthor.
I can tell you something, Bill.
Icelandic record is 200 kilograms and he owns that.
So, this is 10 pounds, 440 is the Icelandic record, Bill.
With his height, at almost 6-feet-10,
that log is literally in the sky, in the stratosphere.
It's an extreme disadvantage for a man his height
to lift this kind of weight overhead.
But The Mountain has it within his mind to get it done.
Come on!
Thirty seconds. Nope. He's finished there.
Ladies and gentlemen, please prepare
for arguably the strongest man in history.
The Lithuanian sensation...
Zydrunas Savickas!
The Big Z.
Big Z, though, he had a little problem yesterday.
He could quite possibly be the best ever, but really, maybe age is catching him,
or a couple of injuries
because he struggled a little bit in the dead-lift yesterday.
The time has begun, here we go.
We've got one, Bill.
I'll tell you what, that right there could be the winner.
No one else last year could do it.
With someone like Eddie Hall on form, he's got to do a couple, I think.
Yes! That's three, folks! One more to equal the record.
Zydrunas is one of those guys, especially in the oak,
where you know when he walks toward the bar
that it's already lifted.
Yes! Zydrunas Savickas!
What a master of strength.
And in typical Zydrunas style, he celebrated with a just a heavy sigh.
Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together
for the man from Stoke-on-Trent in England.
He is The Beast.
He is the British record holder in log, the world record holder in the dead-lift.
CURRENT LEADER EDDIE HALL
Eddie "The Beast" Hall!
EDDIE HALL REPS TO BEAT: 4
Such a toil. A little bit of balance problem there.
There you go, fellas. Make sure he's all right.
All right, sometimes that happens, you just get a little faint.
Things shut off, turn off.
-A little oxygen deficit. -Put your hands together, folks.
Eddie's just, lights went out for a moment there.
Pull down the back here on the elbow.
It's an old injury. It's just fucking flat.
I've just torn it again, I know I have. I heard it go pang.
I know you've claimed him as your son a few times,
but Eddie Hall is, he's having to withdraw.
Did you ever have an "oh, shit" moment? That's what I'm having right now.
Fuck!
Fucking...
LEADERS. BRIAN SHAW 6. ZYDRUNAS SAVI 10. HAFTHOR BJORNSON 5. EDDIE HALL 1.
It's number one, Zydrunas,
the winner of the log, and he's quite quiet.
You are seven times Arnold champion, four times World's Strongest Man.
Yesterday the dead-lift was a little down.
Do you feel you can still win today, win the whole contest,
even after losing so many points in the dead-lift?
I will always say that Zydrunas is the strongest guy
that ever walked the planet
because just the things that I found to be difficult he made look easy.
And I was no chump.
-You still have this. -Three-way tie, I think.
You still have this. Just watch where you go about.
Dumbbell, yoke, frame.
It's frame and yoke. No yoke, I think.
-This. -Yeah.
They heard the filming though.
It like tick everyone off a lot, if I was there.
Oh, that Eddie Hall's an asshole.
-What are you at? -I'm 400.
-Are you? -Yeah. 399, I am.
-Foo, that's heavy, man. -Yeah, I fuckin' feel it as well.
I must admit, it is quite around this region.
How much weight you put on?
Saw you put fucking five pounds
on the fucking fat roll on the back of your neck.
Looks like somebody stuck a sesame bun on the back of your head.
-You feeling all right? -Yeah.
This triceps are not gonna happen, mate.
In terms of like, dumbbell and stuff, anything where you've got to balance,
like a log or a dumbbell, fucking impossible. It hurts like fuck.
Is training going well, though? Did you do that dumbbell?
-Have you done the big one? -Yeah.
-You got many reps or you just done one? -Yeah, just no.
I don't know how many I'll get here.
Putting the average obese American above your head.
300 pounds, yeah.
THE CYR DUMBBELL EVENT 3 OF 5
300
300 pounds in one hand.
Balance is key.
Hey, who is lifting it next?
No, no, this is too much for me. Don't torture me.
I want to do Snapchats. I just need someone to lift it.
I've seen some training vids. I know he can do this kind of weight.
This is gonna be one of the closest Arnolds.
Guys are gonna be one, two points apart
rather than like, Zydrunas rolling people by 10 points.
It's not gonna be that.
Come on, Hafthor.
That was close.
Very few men can do this, and no boys.
Come on! Yes, come on!
The big Z getting wrapped up.
Power lifting champion.
World's Strongest Man four times. Arnold champion seven times.
Zydrunas Savickas!
You can tell just by looking at people if they're ready or not.
I think Brian Shaw is on form.
You know, I can't see anyone beating Brian at this competition.
You know what? If I was a bettin' man, I would always bet Zydrunas.
I think he's the strongest man that ever lived.
Between Brian Shaw and Savickas, they have battled it out at the Arnolds
and World's Strongest Man for the last six, seven years.
It's this epic battle, clash between us and we're neck and neck,
and it's, you know, it's this half point, it's one point.
It's, you know, does he slip up just a little bit?
Do I slip up a little bit?
Zydrunas Savickas, the great strength athlete from Lithuania begins.
Here we go, the Big Z.
Didn't quite lock it out.
He gave Magnus the eyes there, and I tell you what,
a weaker referee would have given that one.
I've tried to analyze him from every which way,
and sometimes I think he doesn't look as good,
sometimes I think this or that, but he ends up doing something crazy.
Zydrunas knows if he gets one rep here, it gives him massive points advantage.
We've got one, Bill.
Zydrunas Savickas.
Good job, big guy.
This contest, Brian is biggest competitor because this year, we are very close.
I must look what he do, but still, I looking what I do
and if I be better than me, I will be winner.
The big Shaw.
Well, if there was one man who was more cerebral
than others in strength, it's Brian Shaw.
I mean, he's a very, very intelligent man.
He thinks through every lift.
The rest of the world are in big trouble here, baby.
That was awesome.
Come on, Brian.
Come on, Brian, let's go! Come on!
BRIAN SHAW REPS TO BEAT 2
One rep, no problem.
You know what he can do, get behind him.
Let's see the second, Brian. Come on!
Lovely, number two.
Colin, in my life, I have never seen such tremendous power
as Brian Shaw has just displayed two times in a row
with a 300-pound dumbbell.
Come on, Brian! Bring it! Right now!
This one would put him into the lead.
For the U.S.A.
Right there! Brian Shaw!
Good job, baby!
Brian Shaw we know has the win in this Cyr dumbbell.
BRIAN SHAW 9 6 10
Z 5 10 2
So, at the moment, Brian Shaw in the lead, 25 points, Bill.
Two points ahead of Zydrunas Savickas. So, it's tight at the top.
The final couple of events, how could it pan out?
What are the events like for you?
There's a lot on the line right now,
a lot of pressure, and anything can still happen.
If I do what I've done in training, I should perform pretty well.
Once again, you're extraordinary.
Let's hear it for this champ in the Cyr dumbbell, Brian Shaw!
Thank you, guys, for your support. You're awesome.
If he wins, I think he's gonna be super excited,
but to be fair, he expects himself to win,
so, it'll kind of be, this is what I expected.
If he loses, he'll be furious with himself
because he knows it's in his hands,
and he'll flat out tell anyone that asks,
"I can only blame myself."
Well, this is certainly a true test of strength.
I'll tell you, the one man who always does well at this is Zydrunas.
That raw power of Savickas.
We have to keep in mind,
you watch our Strongman staff move this weight,
it takes six men to move this apparatus around on this stage.
That gives you a good idea of just how heavy this apparatus is.
THE BALE TOTE EVENT 4 OF 5
700 KGs, 13 feet.
1,540 pounds, Bill.
All right. Dimitar Savatinov strapped up, ready to go.
DIMITAR SVATINOV
Looks like he's going for a slightly lower pickup.
Come on, Dimitar, gotta get it going.
Eighteen seconds to go.
Just over 10 seconds, come on.
Keep it moving.
Solid form for him,
just lunging forward, trying to make up some court.
The last seconds, come on.
30.00 DIMITAR SAVATINOV
Dimitar went halfway down the course.
HAFTHOR BJORNSSON TIME TO BEAT - 30.00 SECONDS
Let's see if our next competitor can go the whole distance, 13 feet.
The whistle has been given. We're underway here.
Two meters, five centimeters tall, six-foot-nine.
Though maybe not at the end of this.
Oh, that was a lunge there from Bjornsson.
He's got it movin' again. Come on, Hafthor.
Ten seconds.
19.84 HAFTHOR BJORNSSON TIME TO BEAT: 30.00 SECONDS
That was superb from the mighty Thor. What a recovery.
CURRENT LEADERS BRIAN SHAW 25- ZYDRUNAS SAVICKAS - 23
You know, it takes a special somebody
to go into a special zone to make this happen.
I remember you once saying about Brian Shaw,
I thought it was a great line, the evolution of the sport.
A six foot eight man who moves like a true athlete,
who has the power of the greatest, most world-class power lifter.
It's the whole package.
Brian Shaw in the lead, 25 points,
two points ahead of Zydrunas Savickas.
Big Z is the poster boy for the power belly.
Who wants abs when he can have a power belly, Kaz?
That's what I say.
How many titles does he have?
Everybody in the world wants to be like Z, you know that.
He's won everything many, many times.
Arnold Champion seven times, Zydrunas Savickas!
I can put a ton of pressure on him, and typically,
typically, he'll step up and he can to do the same to me,
and typically, I'll step up.
Between Brian Shaw and Savickas,
they have battled it out for the last six, seven years.
He looks comfortable. This is impressive.
Just rocked forward there a little bit.
Gotta pick and go one more time. Come on, Zydrunas.
16.50 ZYDRUNAS SAVICKAS TIME TO BEAT: 19.48 SECONDS
Just rocked forward a little, Kaz. He was looking good.
Great power. He was so comfortable.
Zydrunas is a heck of a competitor
and he's been at the top
of now what would be a couple different eras.
He dominated, dominated the Arnold after it started.
You know, 2000, basically 2003, 2004, 2005.
He was just winning and nobody could step up to touch him at all.
-Brian here, -Come on, Brian , let's go!
the chance for Brian Shaw to lay down the law
to the rest of the competitors to take the advantage,
which is just two points currently,
and extend that going into the fifth event.
Let's hear it, Brian Shaw from the U.S.A.!
Come on, Brian.
Come on, Brian, you got this! Let's go! Come on!
Come on, Brian! Let's go! Come on!
BRIAN SHAW (CURRENT LEADER) TIME TO BEAT - 16.50 SECONDS (ZYDRINA)
We are underway.
So far, so good.
8.90 BRIAN SHAW (CURRENT LEADER) TIME TO BEAT: 16.50 SECONDS (ZYDRUNAS)
Brian Shaw destroys the bale tote!
No problem.
Little morning walk with the dog.
Nice, smooth footwork.
Really rock solid.
Way to go, champ!
Oh, my God, that was insane!
I told you 10 seconds.
BRIAN SHAW 9 6 10 10 35
A lot of the sports we most value in the United States,
we are used to the best teams getting beat a lot, right?
So, there's the Any Given Sunday
or there's in baseball, the always next year.
Even you think, well, the best team actually loses a lot of the years.
This is something where it's so cut and dry.
If a guy fails, it's because he was bested in the most direct way
and there can only be one guy at the top.
When I come to competition,
I know exactly what I must do to be a winner
and after dead-lift, I was so happy
because I was healthy for next event.
Two one half weeks ago and I go to gym
and try to lift very heavy dead-lift and I injure my muscle.
I come to Columbus now, but then I go to doctor
and they find that it's serious injury but not so big,
and I can do all events, but I can't do dead-lift.
But I still say that I need to do something in dead-lift.
And my plan was to be fifth in dead-lift or sixth.
I got sixth place,
and most important thing that I was not injured again.
Between Brian it's three points.
Some guys think, oh, my God, I will lose this competition.
But in my heart, I believe that in the end, I will be winner.
We're both very strong mentally.
We both don't typically make very many mistakes,
if any mistakes at all.
And we both can step up in a big moment and perform.
And that's what makes us so competitive with each other.
I think he maybe is a little more relaxed than last year.
I can't remember the points from last year, but he has a decent lead.
Leading three points going into the last event,
frame carry, it's a big lead.
It's like leading 10 points in a basketball game, one minute left.
The other team has to make a lot of mistakes.
Brian is also very good in frame carry.
This is an event that has been done
at the Arnold Classic here since the very first year.
The man who actually started this Strongman event here,
and I'm gonna grab him before he runs away,
is Dr. Terry Todd.
Terry, as they're just sorting things out here,
what would you say this tests more than anything else,
this final event of the Arnold Classic?
It tests overall body strength.
THE TIMBER CARRY EVENT 5 OF 5
You have to sustain 500 kilos, about 1,100 pounds,
and you've got to walk up the ramp holding it in your hands.
Get your stopwatches out, folks.
Now, he knows what he's got to do.
You can't imagine how much is on the line here for these guys.
The glory, the money, and it is a very significant amount of money.
It's the biggest prize in all of Strongman.
He is the reigning Arnold Champion.
0.00 BRIAN SHAW (CURRENT LEADER)
We're underway.
He's got the rhythm now. Come on, Brian.
Power, power, power!
Shaw power!
18.62 BRIAN SHAW (CURRENT LEADER)
The time was 18.62 seconds.
Only one way to win.
Not just beat Brian, but be number one in that event
and hope that more guys beat Brian.
It's not impossible, but it's verging on the impossible.
You need at least three men, probably four men,
to beat Brian, and Zydrunas has to win.
Just three guys who can beat him, Hafthor...
HAFTHOR BJORNSSON BRIAN'S TIME - 18.62 SECONDS
He's moving. It's going.
Come on, Hafthor! All the way!
You can do it! Yes!
14.31 HAFTHOR BJORNSSON (BRIAN'S TIME - 18.62 SECONDS)
-Vytautas. -Come on, Vytautas.
VYTAUTAS LALAS BRIANS'S TIME 18.62 SECONDS
Keep it going! Keep it going, Vyta, come on!
All the way!
14.27 VYTAUTAS LALAS (BRIAN'S TIME B- 18.62 SECONDS)
And Mateusz.
Don't drop it, keep it going! Keep it going!
MATEUSZ KIELSZKOWSKI (BRIAN'S TIME - 18.62 SECONDS)
Yes!
Just the Big Z to come.
16.16 MATEUSZ KIELSZKOWSKI (BRIAN'S TIME - 18.62 SECONDS)
His body's been through torture.
Do you know what, Bill? It's very important to say this.
There's three points between Zydrunas and Brian Shaw, who leads the contest.
CURRENT LEADERS BRIAN SHAW 35 - ZYDRUNAS SAVICKAS - 32
This is the final event.
Zydrunas, he has every opportunity of making it an eighth title.
If he goes 14 seconds or below...
He knows that explicitly.
TIME NEEDED TO WIN ARNOLD CLASSIC - 14.27
At this moment, plain and simple,
this is Shaw's world unless Savickas wants to take it back.
If there's one man who can do it,
it's the man who's won seven Arnold titles.
One man left to take it all.
Some say he's the strongest man in history.
ZYDRUNAS SAVICKAS TIME NEEDED TO WIN ARNOLD CLASSIC - 14.27
ARNOLD CLASSIC
We are underway.
So far, so good.
And... he is the winner!
13.00 ZYDRUNAS SAVICKAS TIME NEEDED TO WIN ARNOLD CLASSIC - 14.27
We don't even have to look at the clock.
Zydrunas Savickas!
Ladies and gentlemen, the time, 13 seconds dead.
LEADERS. Z 5 10 8 9 9 35 9 6 10 10 3 32. BRIAN SHAW.
Hey, Zydrunas, congratulations. How does it feel winning?
Thank you, it feels great. I won eighth time.
It was hard way through to this contest.
Well, you did a great job running up that ramp, I tell you that.
I love that event,
because first time when I won Arnold Classic, 2003,
ZYDRUNAS SAVICKAS DISTANCE: ENTIRE RAMP
I did in same event.
-Congratulations. Congratulations. -Thank you.
Fantastic, let's give him a big hand, to all of them.
Fantastic job. Congratulations.
Congratulations. Congratulations.
Congratulations.
Watching Brian, I could just tell he was confident, you know?
He thought, I could tell he thought he had this in the bag.
Watching on was quite hard to watch because you just,
all he had to do was come in, like, the top four and he'd have won.
This is Brian's life.
To not win something like this when you've trained a whole year for it
is pretty, pretty harsh.
Zydrunas hung around, and I knew it would be,
he'd be consistent enough to stay right there.
In my mind, there's definitely other things I could have done.
I'm just gonna go home, train harder,
and do my best in the next competition.
I was little bit scared,
but I still believe in my heart that I will win,
and it's happened, and I won.
You must fight until end, and also always believe yourself.
I do it for my country, for my friends, for my family.
If your goal just that you want to be champion,
maybe you have won two times but you will not be 10 times champion.
It needs to be something more.
When they come to the Arnold Classic, they feel like they're being celebrated.
You're somebody. You're special.
I think it's one of my joys of my year is always to go to the Arnold Classic
and to meet all these different athletes,
but specifically those World's Strongest Men.
It's a brotherhood, you know? Like, we're modern day gladiators
that actually hope that the other person does more than we did
just so we can see somebody do something amazing.
THE ARNOLD STRONGMAN CLASSIC IS NOW CONTESTED ON 6 CONTINENTS.
THE ARNOLD CLASSIC IN OHIO STILL OFFERS THE LARGEST PRIZE IN THE STRONGMAN WORLD.
ZYDRUNAS' BACK INJURY KEPT HIM FROM COMPETING FOR MORE THAN 6 MONTHS.
THE DAY AFTER THE COMPETITION, HAFTHOR ENTERED A RECORD BREAKER CONTEST
AND BROKE HIS OWN WORLD RECORD IN THE "WEIGHT OVER BAR."
HE WENT ON TO WIN THE NEXT THREE ARNOLD STRONGMAN COMPETITIONS:
AUSTRALIA, SOUTH AMERICA, AFRICA.
BRIAN AND KERI WELCOMED THEIR BABY A MONTH AFTER THE ARNOLD CLASSIC.
SEVEN MONTHS AFTER THE ARNOLD CLASSIC,
EDDIE ATTEMPTED THE "IMPOSSIBLE" 500 KILO DEADLIFT (1100 LBS.)
Raise it up, Leeds Arena, here we go!
Eddie! Eddie!
And away we go!
Eddie Hall lifts a half ton!
500 kilograms is off the floor!
500 kilograms has been done!
500 kilograms is no longer a myth!
Let's have a round for Eddie's wife.
A special moment for the Hall family.
What an incredible moment for the Hall family.
You know, why do we do these things? Why do we lift weights?
It's human nature. It's who's the alpha male.
You know, who can pick the most weight up from the floor?
Who is the strongest?
And that's history and it'll be a big part of history
for thousands and millions of years to come, I'm sure.
And that's why we do it, you know?
It's to find out who is the alpha male.
EDDIE EVENTUALLY WON THE TITLE OF STRONGEST MAN ON EARTH.
HE RETIRED FROM STRONGMAN THE FOLLOWING DAY.
AFTER NEARLY TWO YEARS OF RECOVERY, ZYDRUNAS SAVICKAS IS HEALTHY.
"THE STRONGEST MAN IN HISTORY" WILL RETURN TO THE ARNOLD STRONGMAN CLASSIC AGAIN.