All 5 Heats for the 2014 World’s Strongest Man are over and done with, and all that’s left is the FINAL! 10 men qualified from coming in the top 2 places in each heat, and I can now confirm that the 2 wildcard picks will be Australia’s Warrick Brant and USA’s Dave Ostlund! With all 12 men ready for the final, the big question on everyone’s mind is WHO WILL WIN? Here are my predictions for the 2014 WSM!
Firstly, here is a reminder of everyone that has qualified:
Brian Shawn – USA
Martin Wildauer – Austria
Terry Hollands – England
Mike Burke – USA
Laurence Shahlaei – England
Zydrunas Savickas – Lithuania
Jerry Pritchett – USA
Eddie Hall – England
Hafthor Bjornsson – Iceland
J F Caron – Canada
Dave Ostlund – USA
Warrick Brant – Australia
USA take up a third of the qualifying positions with 4 men out of the 12, with England just behind with 3 men. Ever since 2006, when Phil Phister won the WSM for the USA for the first time since Bill Kazmaier, it seems that America has really gotten the Strongman bug, and have been producing some of the best strongmen athletes in the world, including 2 time and current reigning, defending World’s Strongest Man Brian Shaw! England for many years was Terry Hollands and practically nobody else. As he sees his strongman carrier coming to an end, Eddie Hall looks to be the man to take his place as England’s best hope, with Shahlaei not quite looking as dominant as he has in previous years. Still, with 3 Englishmen in the final it increases our chances of a possible winner, or at least another podium finish! That being said, you should never count out the Lithuanian, Zydrunas Savickas, a former 3 time winner and one of the greatest strongmen to ever live. He is probably my personal favourite strongman, so I will certainly be rooting for him to win it a 4th time! Speaking of 4 time wins, Iceland’s Hafthor Bjornsson is looking to continue Iceland’s impressive streak in strongman. In the past, both Jon Pall Sigmarsson and Magnus Ver Magnusson of Iceland each won the title of World’s Strongest Man 4 times, giving Iceland the most Strongman wins of any country! Without doing a google search (to avoid any potential spoilers), I believe that if Brian Shaw retains his title this year, the USA will equal Iceland with 8 wins overall. Don’t hold me to that though! Either way, Iceland has always had a tremendous impact on the competition, and Bjornsson has to be considered a favourite this year. As for the rest of the competitors, well, absolutely no disrespect to any of them, but I honestly don’t see any of them challenging for a podium finish.
Who DO I see winning though? Well for my money, the top 3 this year will be the same as last year; Brian Shaw, Zydrunas Savickas, and Hafthor Bjornsson. The order, however, could be vastly different. It seems like the organisers of the competition are really, really pushing Thor as the favourite. He competed in 3 of the 5 Giant’s Live events, winning all 3. He seems to be talked about the most, and I do have to wonder if the reason is because he is on Game of Thrones, one of the biggest shows on television right now. I can’t blame them; The Mountain from Game of Thrones winning the WSM competition would likely make the news, and help promote the competition and sport, which would be great. However it seems like they are doing all this promotion of Thor hoping he will win, without truly considering that Brian Shaw is damn near unbeatable. As much as I love and respect Big Z, and always root for him to win… based on what he looked like in the heat, I’m not sure he quite has what it takes to win WSM again. He is getting older, and he is looking slower than usual and maybe even a little less powerful. Maybe he was holding back, but it didn’t look as obvious as it did when Brian Shaw did it. I still think he’s going on the podium, but I predict a third place finish for Savickas. Second place? Going to predict Hafthor Bjornsson goes one better than the last 2 years and make it to second place. He is big, strong, fast and has very few weak events, so he is almost guaranteed a good spot in the final. However, Brian Shaw is just as big, just as strong and fast, hell maybe even more so, and probably has fewer weak events. He has already won twice now, and given how impressive he was in his heat, winning outright while CLEARLY holding back on almost every event and not even competing in the Atlas Stones, I just don’t think it would be wise to bet against the big American.
Big Cal’s Official WSM 2014 Prediction – Brian Shaw
Follow