Shetland strongmen show prowess in south events

Two of Shetland’s strongmen were back in action at the weekend, with Davy Cummings competing in a Giants Live Europe’s Strongest Man qualifier in Dumfries on Saturday before joining Dhanni Moar at the Aberdeen Open Strongman Competition on Sunday.

The European qualifier was a tough step up at fairly short notice for Davy, but a valuable experience. The first event saw him come within inches of completing what would have been a personal best lift of 135kg on the overhead log lift.

The second event, the deadlift, opened at 280kg which Davy pulled easily before doing the same at 300kg. Davy decided to then have a go at 320kg for a new personal best and narrowly missed the lift. This proved to be a mistake as a comfortable 310kg would have taken fourth place rather than a share of fifth.

Event three, which involved loading three 120kg sandbags on to a wall from 10 metres out, proved to be Davy’s best event, and he took third place.

The fourth event, the 400kg yoke carry, took its toll with Davy injuring his hip but battling to a fifth place finish, missing fourth by 33cm. This was 60kg more than he had ever attempted before, so a pleasing result.

The fifth event saw Davy struggle with both grip and the hip injury and he failed to carry the 320kg frame.

In the final event the atlas stones, ranging from 110-180kg, had to be carried in and loaded onto platforms. The first three proved quite comfortable but the fourth aggravated the injury and ended the event for Davy in sixth place, meaning an overall sixth place finish in a competition where the top two were dominant and the rest of the field finished very close together.

Sunday saw a beautiful sunny day in Aberdeen and a strong field for the first strongman competition run by Results Gym in a number of years. As well as Davy and Dhanni the event included fellow Scotland’s Strongest Man finalist Martin Bunyan with whom Davy had competed in Dumfries the day before, and Stuart Yule who took second place in the Britain’s Strongest Man U90kg class.

The first event was the rising bar frame deadlift. The starting weight was 200kg and went up in five 40kg increases to a rather hefty 400kg. This event saw Davy well ahead of the rest of the field on five lifts with Dhanni and the majority of the other guys getting four lifts and splitting the points.

Next up came the maximum weight axle, with a bar the same thickness as a coke tin having to be lifted from the floor to chest and then pressed overhead.

The event kicked off with 97kg then progressed in 10kg jumps up to 117kg with all but two competitors still in the competition. The next weight was 122kg and this saw the numbers thinning out with only Stuart Yule, Davy, Martin Bunyan and Dhanni getting good lifts.

All four guys continued onwards past 127kg and got good lifts at 132kg but Dhanni was the only one to progress past that on to 137kg before doing another lift of 142kg despite having already won the event. This was the highlight of the day and it was an extremely impressive lift with Dhanni looking like he could have gone higher if required to.

The farmers walk for maximum distance in 75 seconds with 125kg per hand was next up. Dhanni was victorious again, setting an impressive distance of 60 metres with Martin and Stuart Yule not too far behind him and the rest of the pack spread out a bit. Davy took fifth on typically his worst event with just under 30m. This is the equivalent of going for a brisk walk with five bags of cement in each hand!

At this point in the day Dhanni was comfortably in the lead with Martin second, followed closely by Davy.

The super yoke for 30m was up next. The strongmen had to contend with 320kg on the top of the shoulders which proved quite a challenging weight with half of the field failing to complete the course. This was won convincingly by Martin Bunyan with Dhanni in third and Davy a close fourth with signs of the previous day’s exertions beginning to show.

The penultimate event was an arm over arm pull of a chain over 12m. The chain weighing near to 300kg was an easy event with everyone completing the course in under 30 seconds.

Martin won the event with Davy fourth and Dhanni fifth. Martin had now taken the lead over Dhanni by a mere 0.3 points followed closely by Davy, so it was still all to play for.

Last up was the atlas stone over a 53″ yoke, 120kg for repititions, and Davy set the standard with nine easy reps. Dhanni followed and came within inches of receiving a 10th rep but unfortunately rushed and slipped the stone.

Martin fought hard and got his ninth rep right on the referee’s whistle for time, making for an intense and exciting finale, and the tightest of wins by beating Dhanni overall by only 0.3 points.

All in all it was a great day and fun was had by all. The standard was extremely high and some very impressive lifting was done by both Dhanni and Davy.

They said they would like to thank the organisers and helpers at both Burns Gym in Dumfries and Results Gym in Aberdeen for a couple of excellent days competition and Shetland Weight Training Club in Scalloway for the continued support.