Thought I’d do a quick little write up:
Yesterday I was at the German strongman national championships for the women and masters class. The event took place in Bad Salzungen and was integrated into a city fair, which made for a pretty cool venue. I was there to support my girlfriend who competed. This was her 3rd contest and the heaviest so far. Also Herbert, head of the Kraftsportfreunde Bayern, competed in the masters class. The contest ended early for him though, when he broke his foot on the tire flip.
The events for the women were:
- axle clean and press for max reps in 60 sec. You could chose between 50 and 60 kg and on the day they even offered 40 kg because one of the women was so unsure if she would get 50 kg. However once you have called your weight, there was no changing in case you can’t do it.
- tire flip and log (an actual one, not a strongman log) drag. 4 flips with a 200 kg tire and a 15 meter drag with 110 kg.
- axle deadlift with tires for max weight. This was set up as a rising bar event and each athlete had 4 attempts. Lowest call possible was 100 kg
- farmer’s walk for max. distance with 60 kg each hand. Turns at 15 meter
- loading race: 60 kg sandbag, 60 kg keg, 60 kg atlas stone, 100 kg atlas stone.
Event 1
In training Julia (my gf) has succesfully done multiple singles with 61 kg on the axle c&p. However the axle in competition was a lot different from ours and she wasn’t able to do a clean like she usually does.She had to try it with a continental clean but she has never practised those and never wears a belt. She gave it her very all and had two falls, which looked brutal (couple bruises and hurt her left quad, which hopefully won’t turn out to be too serious of an injury) but ultimately she didn’t get it into rack position.
- Well you live and learn. I think it was the right call and she thinks so as well. You have got to take a risk sometimes. These things happen in competition.
Event 2:
The flip and drag medley. Unfortunately weather didn’t play nice that day and the event had to be stopped midway thorugh and was continued after the deadlift for the guys and girls who couldn’t perform because the ground got too slippery.
Julia did well in this event but her quad was bugging her on the drag part. I was very pleased with her performance and think she did great here!
This event took some victims among the masters. A lot couldn’t finish their course. Herbert got unlucky and broke his foot and another competitior tore his biceps.
Events 3:
The deadlift is like a mutual weakness of ours, although she has better technique, max weights are not her strength (yet) in the deadlift.
We called 100 kg as her first attempt, which was easy. 110 kg was no problem either. 120 kg went fine, which was a PR for her! 130 kg as her last attempt wouldn’t budge though.
Some other women were incredibly strong here. The second best women pulled 180 kg! The events was won by Sandra “Sunny” Bradley (winner of last year’s arnold classic amateur event, will compete as a pro this year) with a very easy 200 kg pull at 80 kg bodyweight. The masters had a bit higher bar with bigger tires and the best won with a 330 kg pull.
Event 4
The farmer’s for max distance. Julia fought like a lioness for every meter. This was super impressive and she even got some comments from the commentator about how great of a fighter she is. Very proud!
She went something over 70 meter with 60 kg each hand! Which was definitely a huge PR. Sunny won and just stopped after 200m (!) gently placing the implements in place for the next woman. That got some laughs
Event 5
The loading medley. Julia struggled a litle bit with the sandbag as we weren’t practising it enough. But hse gutted it out of course. The keg was no problem at all, she has done heavier kegs before. The 60 kg stone was a PR and went up very nice. She didn’t attempt the second stone. Also a great result in this discipline after a very very long day.
All in all I am very happy with Julia’s performance and am super proud of how well she handled everything and how hard she fought! Super impressive to me and there is probably a lot to be learnt for myself
Sunny went for a German record and loaded a 140 kg atlas stone at 80 kg bodyweight. FUCK that was impressive!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BkYZg5QBBzN/?taken-by=sunny_b_strongwoman
I won’t share videos of Julia as I am not sure if she is comfortable with that.
I personally had a great day, helping out some competitors, being there for my girl and enjoying the atmosphere and meeting some of the stronmen I already knew. Really cool contest.
I am proud as hell and I think Julia has a bright future in strength sports
Edit: Julia placed 7th out of 9 and 6th in her weight class