Sunderland man invited to take part in the Strongman Games

A Sunderland man has been invited to take part in the Official Strongman Games (OSG) 2022 in Florida and is asking for help to get him there.

This coming November in Florida over 400 men and women are coming together to take part in the Official Strongman Games. One of these people is Tom Owens, a Sunderland-based coach and strongman who has been invited to attend.

To help get Tom to the Strongman Games a GoFundMe to help raise the £2,000 needed to get him there has been set up. You can find it here.

The invite to the Official Strongman Games

Speaking about how it felt to receive an invite, Tom said: “It’s amazing to be invited and be a part of such a massive event in the strongman calendar. It is literally the pinnacle of my sport, so it truly is an honour”.

Tom has spent the last 14 months working on becoming a Strongman, spending four hours a day, five days a week training. It all started 10 years ago when Tom started training to better his physique and strength. His Strongman aspirations started after winning Newcastle’s Strongest Man 2021 which he took part as it was a local event in North Shields. “I didn’t expect to fall in love with the sport so easily, but I won that competition and then kept winning things so thought I should keep it up in case it went somewhere”.

Other competitions that are on Tom’s win list are Newcastle’s Strongest Man 2021, Tyne and Wear’s Strongest Man 2021, North East Log and Deadlift Championships 2021 and New Levels Strongest Man 2022.

The invitation to the OSG came after taking part in a qualifier, in this case, was done online. Scores were submitted for ‘max overhead from the rack’, ‘three rep max deadlift’ and ‘max sandbag to shoulder’, the footage would then be “meticulously before and scores are settled” with all the weights requiring to be weighed on camera before the scores could be submitted.

This process went well as Tom was invited to take part in the under 105kg weight class at this year’s games, this makes him one for one on qualifier vs invites. After taking the online qualifiers it turned out “they also run-in person qualifier but I was completely oblivious to those as this is my first time even attempting to qualify”. Not that it made any difference as he got the invite.

The OSG is made up of various games to test the strength and stamina of those who compete. As this is Tom’s first time in these games it seemed sensible to ask about what he’s looking forward to and equally as interesting, what he is not.

For the favourite game, that goes to Light Yoke Carry. This game consists of carrying a weight over a distance the fastest. An example, carrying 320kg over 20m, “it’s a favourite simply because I love the movement and there’s nothing like hitting a deadlift personal best.”

On the flip side, the Heavy Farmers Walk were carrying 150kg in each hand and seeing how far you can get is the least favoured due to being “disgustingly painful”. The Sandbag Run was mentioned as an event he used to dislike when he was heavier due to the cardiovascular part of the game.

Working on his Viking Press

The only part that is making Tom nervous is being in the right place at the right time for parts of the games such as weigh-ins and athlete meetings but not the games themselves, saying: “I know fully what I’m capable of and whether there’s a crowd of 10 or 10,000 it doesn’t change the fact that I can only do what I can do and nothing more.”

Out of the others who are going to the OSG, Tom is looking forward to competing against Ireland’s Strongest Man, Shaun Diver and Zydrunas Savickas who has the most wins in Strongman history. Both contestants are known by reputation, but Tom has spoken with Shaun Diver via social media and describes him as “a real machine”.

The games are taking place between November 11-13 2022.

Please do go and give Tom Owens your support and donate to his GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/get-this-man-to-the-official-strongman-games.

Follow Tom on Instagram

Pulling the chain at Ultimate Strongman

More information about the games can be found here.

You can watch how the games go live at https://www.strongman.games/livestream starting at 2.50pm BST (9.50am EST).