Travis Ortmayer Doing the Stones at the MET-Rx World's Strongest Man Contest Today

Saying it would be bad sportsmanship to sit out the Atlas Stones this afternoon, Travis Ortmayer is getting ready for yet another battle with Dave Ostlund, pitting two of the most capable stone lifters on the planet against each other in the final event in the qualifying round of the 2008 MET-Rx World's Strongest Man contest.

Ortmayer has already qualified for the 2008 MET-Rx World's Strongest Man finals, so he could sit out the Atlas Stones, but rather than taking this cautious route, Ortmayer's thoughts are on Dave Ostlund, with whom he's been battling for top honors on the stones for five years, saying: "There's no way I'm going to let him beat me."

Dave Ostlund will be looking for a top performance himself because it appears that either he or Jimmy Marku will be advancing to the WSM finals based on how the Atlas Stones go in their group today.

And for Ortmayer to do anything less than give this event his best effort is unthinkable, telling IronMind® that the only way to approach the stones is to attack them at full speed, and that besides being a competition, "World's Strongest Man is about camaraderie, so it wouldn't be fair to make some guy go out there and compete by himself."

Travis Ortmayer told IronMind® there's a lot of talk about how this is the best field ever at World's Strongest Man, a common theme emerging from this year's contest, and he's not one to fumble around when talking about who's doing what.

To Ortmayer, it's obvious that "Mariusz is the man to beat," no matter what the talk of his injury, and Ortmayer's game plan is to give Mariusz the full respect that a four-time World's Strongest Man winner has earned.

"It would be a mistake to assume that Mariusz will be anything less than 100%," in the 2008 MET-Rx World's Strongest Man contest finals, Ortmayer said, adding that he's expecting to see, "The Mariusz of old . . . the myth . . . the legend."

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