Gemma (Taylor) Magnusson has just proven that, properly promoted, strongwoman can be a hit, as Jóhanna Eivinsdóttir Christiansen won the Iceland’s Strongest Woman today in Reykjavik in a contest such as strongwoman has never seen before.

Ragnheiður Martha Jóhannesdóttir was second, and Katrín Eva and Thelma Snorradóttir tied for third.  Click here for full Iceland's Strongest Woman results.

Gemma infused this contest with an energy level that took strongwoman contests to a new level of appreciation as witnessed by the fact that she caught the attention of Icelandic media big time, with pre-contest and live coverage showing how well the contest drew attention.

Gemma said that her husband - Benedikt (the man who deadlifts just about anything that isn’t nailed to the floor) - and his brother made all the equipment, painted it gold, and that helped set the stage for the drama that followed:  the contest was staged in the Smáralind shopping mall and had such pull that people who had come to shop, saw the contest and stayed to watch the whole thing.  “I feel sorry for the shopkeepers,” Gemma said.

Many of these women had never really pushed themselves before, Gemma explained, so part of the joy here was the self-discovery of their own strength, she told IronMind®. 

As an illustration of how this works in practice, Gemma said that she was holding a Girlie Deadlift session at the Super Gym she and Benedikt run.  It became so popular that she had to expand to two sessions she said, and as an example of how quickly some of the women progress, one of her students, “an ordinary housewife,” went from a 60-kg deadlift to doing a 140-kg silver dollar deadlift today . . . six weeks later.

This sense of empowerment is both joyous and overwhelming, and for her part, Gemma - quite a strongwoman herself - told IronMind® that now that the contest is over, she is more exhausted than if she had competed in it herself.

Catch the action again tonight at 11:00 pm Icelandic time: http://www.sporttv.is/.