The Cayman Islands Powerlifting Organisation are putting some major muscle behind the country’s first strongman competition.
2017 World Strongest Man Eddie ‘The Beast’ Hall is scheduled to compete Saturday, 5 October at the Lions Centre which will feature five individual and team events, along with demonstrations from the six-time United Kingdom’s Strongest Man.
“I was approached by Tony, and I was told each event was associated to a charity which is close to my heart, so I couldn’t turn it down,” said Hall in an exclusive interview with Hurley’s Media. ”
A portion of the proceeds from the event will go to the Cayman Heart Fund, the Alex Panton Foundation and the Anti-Bullying Foundation.
As a teenager, Hall excelled as a swimmer, winning the British National Championships in multiple events. Towards his senior years of high school, the Newcastle-under-lyme native began a downward spiral.
“I was the best swimmer in the country by a mile,” said Hall. “I was on the junior Olympic squad. I was on a path to be the next Olympic champion, but I fell out with the head coach, said something things I shouldn’t have said, and my swimming career fell flat. I was then expelled from school. I managed to get a girl pregnant at 13-years of age, and my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. I went through a big depression for 18 months, taking Prozac, and seeing a psychiatrist. It wasn’t until 14 or 15 that I decided to go to the gym on the advice of a parent.”
“Every time I went to the gym, I felt better about myself. I felt this euphoria, and it became my obsession,” said Hall. “I did that from age 14 to 19, got to 19 and realized I was the strongest guy in the gym, and one of the strongest in the country. I entered my first strongman contest, became fifth out of 30 guys. That day, when I was 19, I came back, told my friends and family, and put on my Facebook ‘I am going to be the world’s strongest man, watch this space’. Setting that goal was my void filler. It something that kept me busy, focused and stop be from diving into a deep depression, and kept me moving forward in life.”
At the age of 23, Hall won the 2011 UK’s Strongest Man competition, and would repeat as champion for the next six years. In 2014, he became Britain’s Strongest Man and defended his title for the next five years. In 2016, Hall broke the world record for heaviest deadlift by a strongman lifting 500 kilograms (1,102.3 lbs) at the World Strongest Man where he’d finish third overall. The following year, Hall won his first and only World Strongest Man title defeating 2018 winner Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson by one point.
“If you look at the points, you can say it was a close contest,” said Hall. “I won it by a mile. In 2017, I believe I was in the best condition of my life. I believe I was the strongest man in history. I could out press, out squad any man in history. I won all the static events, and fared quite well in the movement events. There were a couple of events, I walked away, and didn’t have to give it my all. I won the squat by two reps. I won the mad deadlift by 12 kilos. It wasn’t close, and there was no arguing it. In the lead up, what made it so special was my obsessiveness with being the strongest man in the world. In 2016, I dislocated my fingers in my left hand and still managed to come third. I lived and breathed it. My regime was religious. I would get up a 3 a.m. to eat, get up at 7 a.m. to eat, go back to bed, I would get up at 9 a.m. to eat. I would go to physio at 11 a.m. I would go to the gym for five hours, come back and eat. Then I’d go to another gym. Come home, eat again. I would spend an hour and a half in a hyperbaric chamber.
“Monday to Sunday, there was no let up. I was military precision for 365 days. I tried harder and gave my all.”
Where did he get the nickname ‘The Beast’? Hall said it came from his idol.
“I was nicknamed ‘The Beast’ by Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, and I became ‘The Beast’, and the audience loved it,” said Hall. “It’s like wrestling: ‘The Undertaker’, ‘Kane’. Those aren’t their real names, they are brands. The audience follow those story lines and those brands, and I was a story line for people to watch and follow.”
Listen to our interview with Eddie Hall in it’s entirety here.
(Photo: The Sun)
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