Strongman Klatovy 2024 - Results and reportage

This year's domestic scene is over. Planning for the 2025 races is now actively underway. But we can still return to the late summer races. Specifically, we will go to Klatovy, which took place on September 7, 2024 in the parking lot at OBI and which has already earned the status of a well-prepared and very pleasant race.

This year, everything was under the guidance of professional strongman Lukáš Kadlec and his team, who definitely knows how to make nice and fun races not only for the competitors, but also for the spectators. On Saturday, September 7, two races were held. One for beginners and one for professionals. How did the race go? How did it go? We'll find out now:

Beginner race

The morning program was filled by beginners, so the scenario was pretty much standard. Beginners are sternmen who have never raced or have no racing experience. This is how practically anyone from the street can compare their strength. The beginners are there to show that anyone who dares to race can do the disciplines and also to warm up the spectators for the rest of the race with their performances.

The beginners' race included the following disciplines:

• Log lift - 105 kg for 1 minute
• Super Yoke - 270 kg for 30 meters
• Sandbag carry - 100 kg for 30 meters
• Car deadlift for 1 minute
• Atlas stone - 140 kg for 90 seconds

Log lift

I remember a time when the same weight, 105 kg on the loglift was part of the amateur strongman league, i.e. a level higher league. But times are changing, the sport is evolving and strength is moving up. All competitors managed to lift the log at least once. The best ones did five reps in one minute, which is a very nice feat. Dominik Majdl, Jiří Janovec and Viktor Čajka won the discipline.

Super yoke

A beautiful discipline in which the competitors carried 270 kg on their backs/shoulders. Ordinary mortals can't imagine such a weight to carry, but believe me, Czech fighters are among the best in the world in this discipline. At professional competitions it is common to carry over 400 kg, then there are competitions like Aš, where you start at half a ton, but there have been 600 kg. In the world, Super Yokes are not that heavy with a few exceptions. But these can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

The beginners handled the discipline well, one single competitor couldn't carry the yoke to the finish, everyone else ran on time. The third place went to Dominik Majdl, who completed the 30-meter course in a great 31.22 seconds. Second place Jiri Janovec thanks to a slightly better time of 30.31 seconds. The fastest runner was Viktor Čajka with a time of 21.78 seconds.

Sandbag carry

If you think that the running events are over, they are not. Strongman must be strong after more disciplines, also comprehensive in performance of all disciplines. Actually the competitors had to run the same course, 30 meters, but they had to take a 100 weight sandbag with them. That's a bit of an admiration... Older years might say, yes 2 bags of cement on the building site... yes, but the younger years would have to argue that there are 5 bags.

Yes the strength of bricklayers and feeders on construction sites seems to be shrinking as manufacturers no longer fill 50kg bags of material, today a bag weighs 20kg. The bronze medal was won by Adan Veinfurt who did it all in a time of 50.84 seconds. The silver belongs to Filip Benes with a time of 46.47 seconds. The first place went to Viktor Čajka with a time of 41.47 seconds.

Car Deadlift

For me, one of the most spectacular variants of the deadlift, lifting the car. It looks fantastic, and people can imagine its weight much more than a small, metallic kotoue. I write small on purpose, but definitely not light. Of course the car doesn't just lift all the way off the ground, it mostly sits on a platform and lifts at some leverage. For most racers the car was no problem. Split second place was awarded for 8 repetitions to Michal Kleinert and Josef Hajek. The victory was again taken by Viktor Čajka.

Atlas stones

Lifting stones is one of the basic disciplines since the beginning of strongman sport. Even though all disciplines are partially changing or evolving, stones remain. Perhaps only their quality is greater these days than it used to be in the past. The competitors lifted a total of 5 stones ranging from 80 to 140 kg. The third place in the discipline was won by Michal Kleinert, second place by Jiri Janovec and the victory again by Viktor Cajka.

Those who read a little carefully already know the winner. I will definitely mention that all competitors fought with all their strength and every point had to be fought for. However, there is only one winner. The closest to him were Michal Kleinert in third place with a total of 18.5 points and Jiri Janovec in second place with 25.5 points. The start-finish system was won by Viktor Čajka with a total of 34 points, who lost a single point by winning the first discipline. After that he always took all of them. Congratulations.

Race of professionals

In the afternoon the Czech top strongman athletes gathered in Klatovy. The best and the strongest of all we have here. In the afternoon, under the light of the sun, which we now only dream about, 9 fighters compared their strength in five heavy disciplines.

• Log lift - 140 kg for 1 minute
• Medley - Farmer's Walk 160 kg over 15 m + Super Yoke - 400 kg over 15 m
• Fingal finger 4x turns for 90 seconds
• Tire flip - 450 kg for 1 minute
• Atlas stones - 100 - 180 kg

Log lift

145 kg is already a solid weight. But unfortunately it's still not enough for the world's top lifters who lift 160 kg or even 180 kg per rep at competitions. In last man standing competitions, i.e. for the highest weight, regularly half of the starting field goes over 200 kg. This is also the case of the Czech competitor Ondrej Fojtů, who currently holds the Czech record for the deadlift and the world junior record for the log lift of 210 kg. However, the 145 kg is such a standard that our professionals lift.

Third place went to the matador of strongman sport Pavel Zadražil with his 4 reps. Second place very strong pusher Vaclav Milacek, 5 reps. Jan Lacina won the discipline with 6 reps.

Medley

The task of this disicpline was to carry suitcases weighing 160 kg in each hand over a distance of 15 meters. Then throw the suitcases and carry the 400 kg super yoke another 15 meters. Fighting for every inch, fighting for every second or hundredth.

Roughly half of the starting field could not carry both implements to the finish line and centimetres counted, but the best could do the discipline several times in the time limit of 90 seconds. Honza Lacina took the third place with a time of 37,75, 35,57 seconds was enough for Pavel Zadražil. The best sprinter was Pepa Hojdar, who literally flew through the finish line in 30.5 seconds.

Fingal finger

The rotation of the column called Fingal's finger is a great, difficult and very technical discipline, the column weighs a certain weight, but the more you lift it, the lower you are and the more the lever makes the column heavier... that is, until the moment when it is lifted to almost 90°, that is, to the vertical position, but you are not finished, the whole martyrdom awaits you three more times. Boom, that's a charge. Once again, half of the starting field handled all four turns, those who had experience knew exactly how to do it, the others had to get a feel for the discipline and will know next time.

Pepa Hojdar took bronze in the discipline, 4 turns in 69,01 seconds. The silver went to the home fighter and organizer Lukáš Kadlec, who did 4 turns in 58,63 seconds. Pavel Zadražil took the gold in the discipline in a time of 41.09 seconds.

Tire flip

The relatively light tire weighing 450 kg had to be flipped a total of 6 times at the races in Klatovy. Professionals should have no problem with this, but the worse was that the total time limit to complete the task was only 60 seconds. So not only strength but mainly speed was the domain of this discipline.

Unfortunately speed was fatal to most of the starting field, judging by the way they fought, strength was undoubtedly in everyone's favour. Third place Norbert Švarc for the time 49,4. The second place was defended by the really breaststroke-obsessed Taiwanese competitor, Lukas Kadlec finished the discipline with a time of 49,09 seconds. First place, and there already with an overview, Pavel Zadražil with a time of 41,09 seconds.

Atlas stones

5 stones weighing between 100 and 180 kg. The only task was to stack them on a raised platform in the shortest possible time. No rocket science. The finals of even the biggest world competitions, so why not in Klatovy. For the spectators, both the organizers and the strongmen themselves would give it away.

Despite one small exception, I'll save that for the final evaluation. Third place Josef Hojdar, all stones in 48,11 seconds. Second place Norbert Švarc, who has the atlases as his favorite discipline, did them all in 35.66 seconds. Norbert normally represents internationally, but in the U105 middleweight division. First place Jan Lacina, again jumped all the stones up in 31,23 seconds.

Results

The race is over and I'll come back to the exception, though I'll actually give away more than I can. Pavel Zadražil did not enter the last discipline, so he took zero for the altas. Even so, it didn't take away from Pavel's smile and it was definitely no injury or anything like that. Pavel collected so many points during 4 disciplines that nobody could surpass him and so Pavel saved his strength and skipped the first discipline. Thus he ranked alongside the legendary Čestmir Šíma, when he could have skipped one discipline completely and still won the whole race...

So we already know the winner, it's Pavel Zadražil, who has been racing fantastically all season, who scored 33 points. Second place and a total of 31 points was collected by Jan Lacina, third place Josef Hojdar with a total of 29.5 points. Congratulations.
For today it's all from a well prepared and perfectly run Strongman Klatovy 2024. I hope to meet you there next year at the next edition.