2007 World's Strongest Man


The 2007 World's Strongest Man was the 30th edition of World's Strongest Man and was won by Mariusz Pudzianowski from Poland. It was his fourth and record tying title. Sebastian Wenta from Poland finished second, and Terry Hollands from the United Kingdom finished third after finishing seventh the previous year. 2006 champion Phil Pfister from the United States finished fourth. The contest was held in Anaheim, California.

Final

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:
#NameNationalityPts
1Mariusz PudzianowskiPoland