Hyde’s Strength Odyssey
- Thread starter Hyde
- Start date
gphagan1
Legend
That is so incredibly awesome, and I know you guys are extremely proud, and you should be. And the Grand Finale sounded incredible, and super impressive. I mean that’s like a Championship level girl fight there.Wife took 2nd place in the Open 148lb women’s class this weekend at United States Strongman’s Nationals!
This is their biggest show annually - over 500 competitors all competing on a single day. The last time we came 2 years ago, she took gold in the Masters 148. After placing in the top third of the pack at a very stacked Arnold Pro-Am this year, she decided to step back into Open to show the younger ladies she’s still got it!
Easy small cut to weigh in at the limit of 148.3lbs on Friday morning (under 67.5kg). Saturday she took 3rd in the Max Axle Press I believe, opening 155 then hitting 165lb on her 2nd attempt, but missing 175 (only 2 successfully hit this out of 10 women in her class). Tied for 8th on the raw Axle Deadlift from floor, pulling 315 for a double (her worst event). The next event was a light arm-over-arm sled pull by a rope to you (seated with legs driving into a board to press off of), followed by immediately getting up to run to the other side and drag it back where it came from - she took 1st in this event with a blistering 22.4 seconds. The 4th event really shook things up: farmers carry down followed by a sandbag shaped like an atlas stone carried back. Unfortunately, the equipment fabricator for the show made the world’s slickest painted fat handles - turning the grip event into a hand size event. EVERYONE was pissed how terrible they were. What is normally an incredibly strong event for my wife turned into only receiving a distance score of 42ft out of 60 (if you dropped twice you were done). Still, some women couldn’t even budge them off the ground, so she scored better than most. Last event was a 175lb sandstone loaded over a bar for reps in a minute - the wife did 8 to tie for 2nd in this.
This left a clear 1st place winner with 41.5 total points, but a 3-way tie for 2nd at 36 points! One of the women was out on countback because she had no 1st place wins while my wife did (this made her 4th place overall), but the other gal had an equal number of 1sts, so they had to go to a tie-breaker event to establish the podium order: STONE OVER BAR, LAST WOMAN STANDING!
They had no advance notice to prepare mentally for this; the women were allowed to take a piss & grab their belts/shoes before meeting at the yoke to settle the score. 175lb sandstone (that they had already loaded for a minute straight as the last event) between them. Hot potato, 20 seconds to load it to the other side or you lose. Stone loading is THE most important event in strongman, so my wife was given advantage to go second as she placed higher on them in the final event. The other woman was absolutely determined to fight to the death, but she never had a chance. My wife is a podium stone-loader any day of the year, and I have watched her load a 160lb stone in the gym like this for HALF AN HOUR years back in training. Most all the athletes in the stadium circled around like witnessing a giant highschool fight. Every time the other woman loaded it, my wife would immediately send it right back over so she had no time to rest. The gal began throwing it over to try to make my wife have to drag it back further, so my wife began blocking it as soon as it came over, continuing to push her. Now she was standing so close, my wife began fuming & staring her down, turning this into a battle of wills. People were going wild! This went on for over 7 minutes straight, until her competitor broke on the 18th rep. Failing to load it, she collapsed in tears & exhaustion. While her friends went to comfort her on the floor, my wife stood triumphant in applause, flexing and roaring for all to behold.
So in typical fashion, my wife completely stole the show: there must have been genuinely 100 people that came up to us to congratulate her incredible victory before we left (which never would have happened if she’d just won 1st place even outright). It sure felt like she was the champion of the day after that display, something people from all over the country will remember for years to come.
And tell her congratulations on putting up such impressive numbers.
Segansational
Well-known member
Wife is an absolute beast! Meaning that in the best way possible of course. Congrats to her - and what a way to finish out! Nothing better than that 1v1 to settle the score in one last event! Awesome!
