World's Strongest Man: The Heats
by Randall J. Strossen, IronMind Enterprises, Inc. © 2006
TWI has just released the official information on the heats for the 2006 MET-Rx World's Strongest Man contest, so review the start list and place your bets.
Group 1: Boris Haraldsson (Iceland), Arild Haugen (Norway), Jessen Paulin (Canada), Don Pope (USA), Mariusz Pudzianowski (Poland)
Group 2: Terry Hollands (UK), Jesse Marunde (USA), Dave Ostlund (USA), Raivis Vidzis (Latvia), TBD (China)
Group 3: Mark Felix (Grenada), Elbrus Nigmatullin (Russia), Phil Pfister (USA), Darren Sadler (UK), Janne Virtanen (Finland)
Group 4: Jarek Dymek (Poland), Dominic Filiou (Canada), Mohammad Gharaei (Iran), Tarmo Mitt (Estonia), Kevin Nee (USA)
Group 5: Magnus Samuelsson (Sweden), Josh Thigpen (USA), Slawomir Toczek (Poland), Sebastian Wenta (Poland), TBD (Norway).
Reserves: Odd Haugen (Norway), Karl Gillingham (USA)
As ever, it should be remembered that these groups are subject to change.
The 2006 MET-Rx World's Strongest Man contest will be in Sanya, China and the filming schedule calls for the qualification rounds to run September 14 - 17, with the top two competitors from each heat advancing to the finals, which are scheduled to run September 21 - 23.
The official World's Strongest Man website contains background information such as athlete profiles as well as details on this year's contest.