The World’s Strongest Man Tour Final was held on 30 September 2017 at the newly reopened Manchester Arena.

The Tour Final was a brand-new event in the strongman competition calendar and marked Giants Live’s first time in Manchester.

The venue had reopened only a couple of weeks earlier after a devastating terrorist attack on the Arena.

An undeterred crowd of 10,000 turned out to watch the World’s strongest men compete across 5 gruelling events, including the World Deadlift Championships.

“The Beast”, Eddie Hall, current World’s Strongest Man—who entered record books at the Deadlift Championships last year with his half tonne deadlift—stunned fans by pulling out during the first eventsaying he had been suffering from flu.

But with the Beast out of the running, the path was open for Zydrunas Savickas (“Big Z”), considered by many to be the strongest man of all time, to take first place.

KonstantineJanashia—“the Georgian Bull” took second place, and Canada’s Strongest Man—Jean-Francois Caron—came third in what was the closest competition ever seen on the World’s Strongest Man Tour.

World Deadlift Championships

In a departure from the usual max-weight event format, the World Deadlift Championships this year was a 400 kilo barbell deadlift, for reps.

Janashia and Caronalso earned a joint win for the World Deadlift Championships 2017 with an astonishing 5 reps each of the 400 kilo barbell in 60 seconds.

Beast taken down by the flu

Eddie apologised to his disappointed fans, saying:

“We may be strongmen, but we are still human, we get ill, we get injured. It is the nature of the sport. I’m sorry.”

The star’s early exit from the competition wasn’t the only surprise of the evening.

The Giants Live Tour Final was as intense and dramatic as every arena strongman show, with some fierce competition between some of the biggest, strongest men in the world.

We saw the return of some old favourites, including Big Z—4 x World’s Strongest Man—making his come back into strongman after recovering from injury, and Terry Hollands, who was looking a little more bodybuilder than strongman!

But we also saw the emergence of some new characters to the sport, like Iron Biby, the 25 year-old from Burkina Faso who wowed the audience with both his static strength and speed on race events, celebrating his win on the Frame Carry with a full body flip; no mean feat for a man weighing 26st 10lb!

Points were so close going into the final event that all top 6 athletes had a bite at the title, making for an edge-of-seat finale on the Atlas Stones and a tense podium ceremony!

Full results:

Event pyrotechnics supplied by Dynamic Fireworks.

Dynamic Fireworks and Giants Live