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Keen to exact revenge for losing his title the previous year, Mariusz Pudzianowski dominated the opening event, the Loading Race, finishing over 6 seconds faster than anyone else and a full 10 seconds in front of defending champion Phil Pfister. Estonian Tarmo Mitt, appearing in his third consecutive final, was forced to withdraw from the competition after tearing his bicep whilst trying to lift the first barrel onto the platform. After finishing second and third respectively in the first event, Terry Hollands and Dave Ostlund both found the following event, the Safe Lift, far more challenging; struggling with the apparent lack of balance in the equipment as well as the strong winds, Hollands could only manage 3 successful lifts whilst Ostlund could only manage 1. Pudzianowski performed well again, managing 15 repetitions, but was beaten out of first place by his fellow countryman Sebastian Wenta, who completed a remarkable 17 repetitions.
Wenta would continue his good form into the next event, the Fingals Fingers, by setting a new world record time of 30.92 seconds, eclipsing Phil Pfister's record time from the previous year. Pfister also beat his own personal best, but finished just behind Wenta in 31.78 seconds. Many thought that this strong performance would enable Pfister to close the gap to Pudzianowski, for whom the Fingals Fingers had always seemed to prove to be a 'bogey' event in previous years. However, Pudzianowski stunned the rest of the competition by finishing ahead of Pfister, completing the course in 31.15 seconds. He would say in an interview with former champion Svend Karlsson shortly after the event that he was so determined to improve in this specific event, he had practiced Fingals Fingers for one hour every day for two months leading up to the competition. Elsewhere, Kevin Nee and Mark Felix both fell even further behind the rest of the competition, being the only two athletes to fail to flip all five fingers. After the first three events, the standings were:
The fourth event of the final, the Deadlift, saw Phil Pfister's chances of a repeat championship evaporate. Suffering from a minor back injury, he managed only 2 successful lifts. Mark Felix, however, proved his claim as being the best deadlifter in the field by winning the event with 11 repetitions. Pudzianowski managed 10 lifts, but was denied an 11th repetition by head referee Colin Bryce who correctly judged that Pudzianowski did not control the bar back to the ground. Hollands meanwhile gained significant ground on both Pfister and Wenta by making 8 repetitions, whilst Don Pope was the only athlete to fail to make a single successful lift. Hollands continued his good form in the Fire Engine Pull, edging out Pudzianowski for first place in the event by just 0.12 seconds, and leapfrogging Pfister into third place in the overall standings. Meanwhile, a disappointing fifth place finish for Pfister all but confirmed that he would be relinquishing his title. The sixth event of the final, the Car Walk, saw solid performances from several athletes, with 5 of the first 8 competitors completing the course in under 25 seconds. However, Pudzianowski proceeded to destroy the rest of the field, finishing the course in 14.62 seconds, nearly a full 5 seconds faster than anyone else. In so doing, he confirmed himself as the new World's Strongest Man with an event to spare, with 2 first place finishes and 4 second place finishes in the first six events of the final. In the final event, the Atlas Stones, Pfister managed to defeat Pudzianowski again in a head-to-head contest after Pudzianowski's fourth stone rolled off its platform, but his time was not fast enough to catch Hollands for a podium finish. Hollands and Wenta meanwhile were matched up against each other in a 'winner-take-all' scenario to decide who would finish in second. Both men lifted all five stones in under 20 seconds - itself a very rare occurrence in Strongman at the time - but Wenta completed the stones in a fractionally faster time, confirming his second place finish.
Pudzianowski and Wenta's 1-2 finish marked just the second time since 1983 that the top two finishers in World's Strongest Man were from the same country (the other being Jouko Ahola and Janne Virtanen's 1-2 finish in 1999), whilst Hollands' outstanding fightback to finish third marked the first time a British athlete had finished on the podium since Gary Taylor won the event in 1993.
United States
Mariusz Pudzianowski
Estonia
Russia
Canada
England
Bulgaria
Germany
Australia
Finland
Iceland
Sweden
Latvia
Norway
