BRADENTON – They’re known to possess incredible strength and resilience. You have to when you dead lift more than half your body weight.
25 of the world’s strongest men have been training for this moment, a chance to climb to the top of the mountain and declare themselves the true man of steel.
“There hasn’t been a year without World’s Strongest Man since 1987, so excited to keep the competition alive and to keep it going,” said Rebecca Levan, Director of IMG Media.
The 37th annual SBD World’s Strongest Man Competition returns to the Suncoast following last year’s success. Competing without a live audience this time around, the athletes had more than one another to compete against.
Mother nature made sure her presence was known. But that wasn’t enough to keep these men from kicking things into high gear, competing in the first day of the qualifying rounds by testing not only their strength and agility but also their mental toughness.
“To keep yourself in the right frame of mind to where all the stresses of the outside world don’t bug you down, to where you can still have that will power you to push through the training,” said Gabriel Pena. “That is a very different type of strength training on its own.”
Pena makes his World’s Strongest Man debut representing Mexico. The 2019 North American National Champion and the first batch of athletes tested their strength in three rounds of events.
The first being the Farmers Walk, which involves the men lifting two wooden implements each weighing more than 300 lbs.
“There’s no what if at that point, it’s more or less how quick can I get this done, how many reps can I bang out, or just how much weight can I lift,” said Pena.
Pena says he proudly will carry the Mexican flag as he competes to represent and encourage all Latino athletes that they too can reach the top of the mountain in anything they set their mind to.
“We are our strongest when we are united and to feel that type of unity it empowers me even further,” said Pena. “And that is a fire that no other competitor has here, I guarantee that.”
The World’s Strongest Man will be crowned this Sunday, but you won’t see the action on TV until December. In the meantime, we’ll be bringing you the latest exclusive behind the scenes action here on SNN.
