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Tom Stoltman successfully defended his crown as the World's Strongest Man.
The 27-year-old fended off a challenge from 2020 champion Oleksii Novikov and Martins Licis on Sunday in Sacramento, California.
Here are the final scores for the 10 participants:
2022 World's Strongest Man Results
1. Tom Stoltman (53.5 points)
2. Martins Licis (43 points)
3. Oleksii Novikov (43 points)
4. Brian Shaw (37.5 points)
5. Maxime Boudreault (34.5)
6. Trey Mitchell (34 points)
7. Luke Stoltman (30.5 points)
8. Mitchell Hooper (30 points)
9. Eythor Ingolfsson Melsted (13 points)
10. Gabriel Rheaume (11 points)
Full results available at World's Strongest Man's official site
Going into the final event, the Atlas stones, Stoltman and Novikov were locked in a tight head-to-head battle.
Stoltman completed nine reps of the power stairs in 41.04 seconds to finish second in the penultimate event. Novikov struggled and only completed six reps in 34.20 seconds, which dropped him into second place overall thanks to the four points he collected toward his total.
It was quite the turnaround for Novikov. He opened with eight points in the medley before claiming first in the next three events: deadlift, flintstone barbell and bus pull. The Ukrainian powerlifter broke the world record in the flintstone barbell and was downright dominant in the bus pull.
But Novikov's bad luck in the power stairs continued into the Atlas stones. He recorded only four reps in 36.70 seconds, putting him in last place for the event. That allowed Licis to climb up the leaderboard.
Because of Novikov's performance, Stoltman's victory was assured without needing to do anything in the Atlas stones. Nevertheless, he completed five reps in 25.76 seconds to record the best time and earn 10 points, putting quite the exclamation point on his triumph.
In the end, Stoltman's consistency catapulted him to a second straight title. The Atlas stones was the only event in which he placed first, but he averaged 8.7 points in the five events before that.
Licis earned his first podium trip since winning the 2019 World's Strongest Man. The United States was well represented at the final, with Brian Shaw (fourth) and Trey Mitchell (sixth) rounding out the Americans' output.
