2012 IHGF European Highland Games Strength Challenge

Nine athletes competed in the 2012 IHGF European Highland Games Strength Challenge, organized by Adam Darazs and won by Csaba Meszaros.

The first day opened with the weight over the bar, won by Michael Wohlrab (Austria) with a height of 15’ 8”.  Next up was the 22 lb. Braemar Stone Put,  which featured the current IHGF European Braemar Stone Putting Champion Adam Darazs. 

“Darazs who was leading the event until the last round when Michael Wolhrab snatched the lead with a winning putt of 38' 1" for the win and to set a new European record,” Francis Brebner reported to IronMind.

A 128-lb., 16’ caber was next, “and without much taper at all proved to be a worthy challenge with only three successful turns in the caber,” said Brebner.  Darazs got the win on “his final attempt with a 12:01.”

“The fourth event was the 22-lb. Hungarian hammer, which is an event fashioned on the Scots hammer back in the 1970’s by a Hungarian athlete, with the only difference being that instead of the wooden shaft theirs is a metal rod with a handle attached for both hands to grip.  This event is also traditionally done without the use of spikes which makes it that little more challenging when trying to build up the much needed speed and to keep the balance at the same time, all the while trying to get the full radius of the hammer when pulling from the right to left.  This made it real interesting to watch,” said Brebner.

“This event come down to the wire between Hungary’s Csaba Meszaros and Ireland’s Jonathan Kelly, with only inches between them, and despite wearing no booted spikes, they produced some fantastic distances. Meszaros won with a throw of 72' 10" and Kelly was in second place with a very close distance of 72' 7".

[Going into the final event of the first day only one point separated the top three athletes with Michael leading with 29.5, Casba with 29, and Adam Dsaruzs in third place with 28.5.

In the warm up,s Hungary's Cazba Meszaros was looking on fine forum and come through with the winning throw of the competition with a distance of 64'1", in second place with a fine effort was Ireland's Jonathon Kelly with 58'6"with , and in third place Timo Nissien with 58'.]

Csaba won the last event of the day, which finished with him in the overall lead with 38 points, followed by Wohlrab in second (35.5 points), Kelly in third (32 points), and Darazs just another 1/2 point back in fourth place.

The second day of competition began with a 240-kg frame carry, 30 meters, which Kelly won with a time of 10.62.

Next was the 110-kg Millstone, lifted for reps with a 90-second time limit.  “This was a traditional lifting event in Hungary which has been done since the early thirteen hundreds,” said Brebner.  Tamas Saliga (Hungary) got the win.

Saliga also won the medley (sled pull, barrel loading, sled pull), and keeping things exciting for the local fans, another Hungarian, Tibor Kiss, won the final event, the Atlas Stones.

Here are the final top three places and points:

1. Csaba Meszaros 62.5
2. Jonathan Kelly 63.5
3. Adam Darazs 56.0


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