Swedish strongman Benny Wennberg began making news in the grip world last year when he started drawing a bead on the No. 4 Captains of Crush® gripper.

Since Benny was coming over to the Arnold Expo, he asked if he could try for certification, and he had arranged to meet with IronMind's Randall Strossen for an official attempt.  In his enthusiasm to demonstrate his great grip, Benny fully closed a No. 4 Captains of Crush® gripper in front of ace strongmen Odd Haugen and Svend Karlsen before Strossen had arrived in Columbus.

Following the established procedure of letting someone close his own Captains of Crush® No. 4 gripper that had passed a visual inspection for it authenticity, Benny still had to have his effort validated by performing on a new No. 4 Captains of Crush® gripper opened on the spot, with the idea that he had to come within millimeters, not centimeters, of closing the new gripper, to prove that there was nothing substandard about his own gripper.

On Saturday, Strossen opened a new No. 4 Captains of Crush® gripper in front of Benny Wennberg, with Wade Gillingham also watching. Unfortunately, Benny couldn't get the handles within the required range, so he was not eligible for certification.

Strossen said that he fully believed both that Wennberg's gripper was authentic and that he had fully closed it, but that it would not be fair to make an exception, and he apologized to Wennberg for having to ask him to take another shot at getting certified.

Wennberg, proving that he has a strong heart as well as strong hands, replied, "It's good that the rules are as tough as it is so that no one can question anyone that has done this CoC#4. You don't have to apology Randy, if I had a stronger grip I would have closed it also on Saturday but my grip was bad of all the massaging and stuff, I don't have the strength (yet) to close it whenever I want to, I must rest a week or two between."

You're entitled to the rest, Benny, and you can bet that we will be cheering for you to make it official in the very near future.)