It was a big weekend for strongman in Lithuania and SCL cofounder Ilkka Kinnunen called the action for IronMind.


Zydrunas Savickas won both SCL Lithuania and the Log Lift World Championships this weekend.  IronMind® | Photo courtesy of SCL.


Zydrunas Savickas: Double Victory in Lithuania
by Ilkka Kinnunen

On Saturday and Sunday, strongmen met in Vilnius in two big events, SCL Lithuania (semi-finals) and the SCL Log Lift World Championships.

The competitions were held in the Siemens Arena, which is the main arena for big concerts and the most popular sport events.

The SCL Lithuania started on Saturday evening; a total of 13 athletes competed in semi-finals. Most of these athletes just arrived from World’s Strongest Man, but still all of them were ready to fight for the first place.

First event: Tyre Flip (360-kg, 4 flips) and Sled Pull (400-kg 18 m) Medley. The top three were Savickas 32.06 sec, Vidas Blekaitis 39.22 sec, Johannes Årsjö 39.89 sec.

Second event: Forward Hold (35 kg). Top three were Ervin Katona with an excellent time of 48.33 sec, Alex Moonen 42.28 sec, Vidas Blekaitis 39.28 sec.

That was the Saturday program and athletes started to get ready for Sunday’s Log World Championships. The competition came on live in Eurosport. The competition started at noon. The minimum opening weight were 170 kg. Athletes had 3 lifts.

Five athletes started with the 170 kg and from those five, Juha Matti Järvi, Ervin Katona, Alex Moonen, J.F. Caron had final result also 170 kg. Etienne Smith was unlucky and could not make the lift (no results)

Johannes Årsjö was six place with 185 kg.

Top five: Krzysztof Radzikowski (opening 185 kg), Misha Koklayev (opening 190 kg), Zydrunas Savickas (opening 195 kg), Vytautas Lalas (opening 190 kg), Vidas Blekaitis (opening 190 kg). These athletes had a great fight for the top places.

Misha second lift 200 kg easy, third 210 kg missed and 5th place. Vidas 2nd lift 200 kg, third 207.5 kg missed and 4th place (lighter athlete),  2nd lift Vytautas Lalas 200 kg, 3rd lift 205 kg missed 3rd place (lightest of 3).  Krzysztof Radzikowski 2nd lift 195 kg and 3rd 207.5 kg excellent lift and 2nd place. Zydrunas missed the first one, 2nd 200 kg easy, 3rd 210 kg good lift and World Champion Log Lift title.

After log lift athletes had three hour break before hitting the last four events in SCL semi-finals.

The athletes continued after the break with Log with reps with 155 kg. Top three: Savickas 9 reps, Blekaitis 8 reps, Radzikowski and Lalas 7 reps. 

• 4th event Deadlift for reps with 360 kg. Top Three Savickas and Caron 10 reps, Lalas 9 reps, Radzikowski 7 reps.
• 5th event Power Stairs with 225 kg, 240 kg, 270 kg and 6 steps. Top three Savickas 30.29 sec, Lalas 31.44 sec, Radzikowski 31.92 sec.

The last event was theAtlas Stones. It was really close with the points in a top 5 and it all came down to last event to determine who would be on the podium. We saw some unbelievable runs done by Lalas and Savickas. However the winner in the event was Vytauas Lalas with 5 stones in New World Record ring of the atlas stones, light set at 17.49 sec!!!  2nd Savickas 18.97 sec, 3rd Saulius Brusokas 20.43 sec.

Top eight overall:

Once again SCL thanks all the athletes, the organising committee, sponsors, Eurosport, Lithuanian TV for such a great job done. 

                                                                         

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