SA Championships 2003 Page 6

EVENT 6: ATLAS STONES

Four round concrete balls (atlas stones) were placed each 3 meters from it's own pedestal. The stones weighed 125kg, 135kg, 145kg and 155kg respectively. We were required to pick up each stone, carry it to the pedestal and put it down on top of the pedestal. This was a real killer event and, had Gerrit not decided to change his scoring system, this would have wreaked havoc with the placing of some of the top guys.

Here are the results:

Like in the yoke walk, only 5 guys went the distance. All the other guys got stuck on either the second or third stones.

I think the surprise performance was by Andre, who managed to complete the event and beat a few of the front-runners in the process. Johan and Etienne were both fast and me, Andre and David were slower.

So, here's the final results for the 2003 SA Strongman Championships:

The new South African Strongman Champion is David Cooks, who performed like a real champ. I feel that Dave was a worthy winner and was definitely the strongest guy on the day.

The guys who gained positions on the last event were Arno, Johan and Etienne, who edged past Gerhard into second place. This is an amazing performance from a guy who was joint last after the first event. Had the log lift gone better for Etienne, who knows what might have happpened?

Unfortunately I do not have many pictures of the atlas stones as our digicam ran out of batteries during this event. Bummer.

Hennie fighting the third stone		Stephan picking up his first stone
Stephan carrying number 2		Stephan fighting number 2
Me approacing pedestal no 1		Me with the second stone
My no 3 stone loaded		Pieter getting ready to start
Pieter carrying the first stone		Pieter getting stuck on the second stone
Johan starting off		Johan on number 2
Rohan picking up the first stone		Rohan ready to load number 1
Rohan with the third stone		Gys with number 1