Hot take: If a man is 206cm tall and sports a rig hauling 200kg of pure granite-like muscle, for the love of god do not piss him off with administrative technicalities.
Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, better known to most of you as the phenomenally terrifying “The Mountain” from ‘Game of Thrones‘ and better known to his friends as Thor, is a career strongman with multiple victories in the Europe’s Strongest Man competition. But the one title that has eluded him throughout his career is the World’s Strongest Man competition.
Björnsson has placed on the podium at the competition every year since 2012, picking up three third place finishes and two additional silver medals. In fact, he’s the only man to score top 3 finishes in every competition during that period.
This year’s contest, held in Botswana, seemed tailor-made for the 28-year-old to finally ascend the lofty throne as the official World’s Strongest Bloke leading into the final discipline: the Viking Press.
Trying to overhaul British rival Eddie Hall for the final lead, Björnsson successfully completed 15 reps of the ungodly heavy-lookin’ contraption.
Or so he thought.
Judges at the contest took one final rep away from the extremely large Icelandic man for “double dipping,” meaning he fell one point short of Hall overall and relegating him to yet another second-place finish.
He was ahhh…. not happy.
In a now-deleted Instagram post, The Mountain raged at competition judges and questioned the very integrity of the sport itself.
“This weekend I was robbed. The integrity of my beloved sport is in question.”
Bloody hell. Run, judges. Run very fast.
Thankfully old mate appears to have calmed down a touch since then, reposting footage from his efforts on the Viking Press (complete with Hall cheering him on from the sidelines, in a wonderful little bit of sportsmanship), asking followers to judge for themselves.
“Really proud of my effort in the Viking Press at the World’s Strongest Man. I completed 15 reps but the referee took the last rep away from me. They say I double dipped. This would have been equal first place with Eddie Hall, which would have scored me one point higher. I know it’s only one point, but sometimes one point can change the game completely. Strongman fans out there what do you think?”
The good news for Thor is that, at 28-years-old, he’s still got a solid handful of strongman years left in the tank. And this year happened to represent Eddie Hall‘s last in the WSM competition. So the door is, seemingly, wide open for Björnsson to ascend the mountain (pun absolutely intended) and finally claim the title for himself next year.
Fun bit of unrelated trivia: Ever wondered what a bloke that size has to eat in order to lift the shit out of those extremely heavy weights?
The farts that man must rip. My god.
Source: Instagram.
Photo: Game of Thrones/HBO.
