# Britain's strongest Man & Woman event.



## Chris Hobson (May 1, 2022)

Yesterday, along with wife Liz and her sister Jill, I went along to see a round of the Britain's Strongest Man and Britain's Strongest Woman contest at the Doncaster Dome. Lots of relatively mindless fun involving big muscular people lifting heavy things in various different ways, all to the accompaniment of snatches of loud rock music and a very shouty man with a microphone. There were contestants representing England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The audience was in no way partisan but gave lots of noisy encouragement to everyone. Each event was held twice, first for the women and then for the men. The men's events had slightly heavier weights. First we had the tyre flip which involved flipping a large tractor or truck tyre along a straight track around 20 metres long. This is just a straight race over a finish line. Next, the dumbbell press where a large dumbbell is pressed with one arm above the head. This is a race to see who can do the most reps in a set time, around ninety seconds I think. The dead lift, this involves lifting a barbell off the ground and again it was best number of reps against a time limit. I do remember that the women's barbell was 200 kilos and a new world record of eighteen reps was set on the day. We then had the stones which involved lifting a spherical stone onto the top of a barrel. The barrels were about shoulder height and there were five each side. The stones gradually increase in size from the first to last and the challenge is to work your way from the smallest as far as you can get along the line. Lastly, and for the women only, there was the car lift. Two small hatchbacks with the rear wheels perched on a metal frame with hand grips attached.  The object here being to hold the car up for as long as possible. The athletes compete against each other two at a time but also against the clock so that they can be sorted into order at the end of each event. There was a television crew there so we will be keeping an eye out for the event being shown on the telly. The event was great fun and was well organised although there were aspects of it that I thought were a little amateurish. There were interviews with the contestants but the ones by the TV people weren't fed through the PA system so we couldn't hear them. The score keeping seemed to involve scribbling on pieces of paper and was really crying out for an electronic scoreboard being displayed on big flat screen tellies. Nit picking aside, I really enjoyed the show. For the men, this was an elimination round for a later final. For the women this was the British championship and there were former and current world champions present so it really was a world class event. Recommended, would definitely go again.


----------



## Chris Hobson (Aug 14, 2022)

Well, we're here again. Waiting for the Britain's Strongest Woman competition to kick off


----------



## travellor (Aug 14, 2022)

You've got me interested now.

Many was the time me and my Dad would sit down in front of the TV and cheer on Geoff Capes, not quite as keen on Sigmarsson!


----------

