Bishop Auckland’s Rhys Henry has been crowned Strongman World Champion in his weight category at this year’s competition in York.
Rhys, who also competed in Finland last year, has bettered his fifth place finish in that competition’s u100kg category to take home the world title for the u85kg category in the tenth anniversary of the World Heavy Events Association (WHEA) Strongman World Championships.
“This year I decided to challenge myself and drop some weight so I could compete in the u85kg category,” said Rhys.
“I ended up having a very good weekend, pressing a 105kg log overhead, lifting a 265kg deadlift, then winning the Farmers Walk, Atlas Stone, and Conan’s Wheel events, then placing highly enough in the Dinnie Stone Hold and Medley to take 1st place overall.
“When I first started strongman, it was my goal to even qualify for the competition, and I was very pleased with 5th place last year.
“But to come back this year and win, the whole thing is quite surreal for me.”
Since becoming a father in 2022, Rhys kitted out his garage as a little home gym and typically trains three times a week.
“Two of those sessions are in the garage where kit is a little bit limited,” he said, “but on my third session I will travel to Northern Strength and Performance in Hartlepool where I can get my hands on the more specialist strongman equipment.
“I am coached by Sean Sheridan, who won BNSF Britain’s Strongest Man u105kg last year. The same competition where I won the u90kg title.”
The World Heavy Events Association (WHEA) has been running drug tested strongman competitions for 10 years.
The organisation is based in Finland, and for the first nine years, that is where the championship has been held.
For the 10th anniversary they held the competition at Dominus Strongman Division in York.
The sport of strongman is about lifting heavy and unusual objects. A typical strongman competition is made up of 5-8 events, which involves:
Pressing weights overhead for either most weight or for most repetitions
Lifting weights from the floor for either most weight or most repetitions.
Carrying weights for either the fastest time across a set distance, or for the most distance within a time limit.
Weights can include those typically found in gym equipment such as barbells and dumbbells, but more often the promoters like to make the competition look more interesting and include unusual objects such as logs, axles, kegs, sandbags, atlas stones, farmers walk handles, and more.
At the end of the competition, the person who has accrued the most points over the events is declared the winner.
“Often you don’t have to win every event, you just have to be the most consistently high scoring across the events, and try not to have too many events where you lose too many points,” said Rhys.
However, he placed 1st in four of the seven events and 2nd in two to win by 5.5 points overall.
Full scoreboard for Rhys’s category can be found here: https://strengthresults.com/competitionHome/07f8289a-42e2-4465-a72f-1712cadbfeda/1
Full livestream can be watched at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BrOUlO8yGI&t=23s
Videos of Rhys’s performance at: https://www.instagram.com/p/DPeuq5fDDsT/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Bishop Auckland's local community newspaper.
