World’s Strongest Man crowned Sunday — not before trains get pushed around in Old Sacramento
On the last day of pulse-pounding, muscle-pumping action in Old Sacramento on Sunday, this year’s World’s Strongest Man was named.
Scotland’s Tom Stoltman, last year’s second-place finisher, was named the strongest man in the world, overcoming competition from last year’s champion, Oleksii Novikov of Ukraine.
On Saturday, Old Sacramento was a sight for sore eyes. With most coronavirus restrictions lifted, Sacramento residents were out and about in droves shopping, dining and doing their best to stay cool amid blistering heat.
But there was one thing you don’t see every day in the historic waterfront district: competing athletes pushing a 66,000-pound, 19th-century steam engine with manpower.
The penultimate day of events at the California State Railroad Museum was marked by the so-called Titan’s Turntable, in which contestants took turns pushing the engine around on the vintage 1911 turntable outside the museum building.
In the 44th annual World’s Strongest Man competition, more than two dozen men have been testing their mettle against the metal at the railroad museum. Travis Ortmayer, originally from Texas, spoke with The Sacramento Bee outside the museum over a rickety picnic bench — a bench which the 6-foot-4, 321-pound strongman could barely fit into. His handshake was like a vice grip, and his T-shirt did little to restrain his bulging biceps.
He performed last on Thursday, and didn’t move on to qualify for this weekend’s finals. But, he said, after taking a 10-year hiatus from World’s Strongest Man, he said in many respects, it’s a victory just to be back competing alongside other strongbodies.
He suffered an early hamstring injury which cost him enough points to keep him from the final event, the atlas stone lift. The massive concrete stones weigh between 310 and 465 pounds, and it’s a competition that Ortmayer said he was looking forward to.
“If I’d have gotten to that stone-off — that’s my event,” he said. Then, grinning, Ortmayer added: “Next year.”
Ortmayer placed fifth in the World’s Strongest Man competitions in 2008, 2009 and 2010, and competed in 2011, too, before taking a break. It’s been tough making it back into fighting form since then, he said.
“Basically I had to claw my way out of hell,” he said. “Then, looked up and saw this enormous mountain I had in front of me that I had to climb. And that was just to get back to where I was.”
Novikov, Stoltman and last year’s third-place winner, Jean-Francois Caron of Canada, all competed in Sacramento after the coronavirus pandemic delayed the 2020 event, which was held in Bradenton, Florida. Stoltman also competed alongside his brother, Luke, who is older by 10 years.
There are a few things that all strongmen share, according to Ortmayer, besides rippling muscle and ultra-human strength.
Training is a full-time job, he said, and achieving the kind of physique necessary for this level of competition is a lifestyle, not a hobby. That means that the competitors, by and large, find much in common with each other and share in a sort of brotherhood.
“The personality type for World’s Strongest Man: You’ve got to be maybe missing a couple screws,” he added. “Not just loose screws, but they’ve had to have fallen out somewhere along the way.”
Rebecca Levin, vice president of IMG Media, one of the competition’s main organizing agencies, said she often sees the competitors giving each other advice and pointers from the sidelines, and getting to see everything come together firsthand while events are filmed for television is something special.
“You can’t help but watch a man push a train,” she said.
Tickets were available for Sunday’s events in person, and the World’s Strongest Man competition will also air on CBS and CBS Sports starting July 3 if you couldn’t make it to Old Sacramento on Sunday. Livestreams were available on Facebook.
Sacramento has been slated as the host destination for the 2022 competition as well.
This story was originally published June 19, 2021 at 4:00 PM.