The 2024 Europe’s Strongest Man (ESM) occurred on April 13, 2024. Twelve of the top strongmen in Europe vied for dominance in front of a sold-out crowd at the First Direct Arena in Leeds, UK.

After five grueling events, including the Nicol Stones, Car Walk, Deadlift Ladder, Viking Press, and Atlas Stones, the heat on the stones between Luke Stoltman and Aivars Šmaukstelis decided the top of the podium. Stoltman emerged victorious, reclaiming the ESM title by a single point over Šmaukstelis.

Oleksii Novikov, despite injury, finished in third place overall. The final standings are below:

2024 Europe’s Strongest Man Results

Luke Stoltman — 44 points

Aivars Šmaukstelis — 43 points

Oleksii Novikov — 40 points

Ondřej Fojtů — 38 points

Shane Flowers — 36.5 points

Nicolas Cambi — 35 points

Pavlo Kordiayaka — 33 points

Pa O’Dwyer — 33 points

Rauno Heinla — 33 points

Gavin Bilton — 21.5 points

Frederik Johansson — 17 points

Konstantine Janashia — 10 points

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Event 1 — Nicol Stones

The first event was the Nicol Stones carry, in which the competitors had to lift and carry two awkward, mismatched stones of different weights as far as possible.

Relative newcomer Ondřej Fojtů of Czechia opened the show and set an incredible benchmark that was only eight meters short of the world record. No one could match his performance.

Ondřej Fojtů — 24.15 meters

Shane Flowers — 22.62 meters

Aivars Šmaukstelis — 20.00 meters

Luke Stoltman — 20.00 meters

Pavlo Kordiayaka — 17.15 meters

Pa O’Dwyer — 16.91 meters

Frederik Johansson — 14.63 meters

Rauno Heinla — 14.13 meters

Nicolas Cambi — 13.93 meters

Oleksii Novikov — 13.00 meters

Gavin Bilton — 12.64 meters

Konstantine Janashia — 10.21 meters

Event 2 — Car Walk

The Car Walk is iconic in strongman competition. The modified car body weighs a colossal 450 kilograms and challenges each strongman’s midline to keep the frame steady.

The top four athletes in this event finished within 0.6 seconds of each other. Stoltman scored the win to move into the overall lead. Italy’s Nicolas Cambi was .44 seconds behind Stoltman — stellar for his first Giants Live debut.

Luke Stoltman — 16.13 seconds

Nicolas Cambi — 16.57 seconds

Oleksii Novikov — 16.67 seconds

Pavlo Kordiayaka — 16.73 seconds

Konstantine Janashia — 22.38 seconds

Aivars Šmaukstelis — 24.33 seconsd

Ondřej Fojtů — 26.09 seconds

Pa O’Dwyer — 27.69 seconds

Rauno Heinla — 29.16 seconds

Gavin Bilton — 32.16 seconds

Shane Flowers — 41.54 seconds

Frederik Johansson — 48.10 seconds

Event 3 — Deadlift Ladder

The deadlift ladder event challenged the strongmen to lift five barbells with successively heavier weight — starting at 300 kilograms and maxing out at 380 kilograms. Unfortunately, this event took Konstantine Janashia out of the contest. He injured his hand on the thin metal rings of the Nicol Stones, and after only two deadlifts, he withdrew from the competition.

Only four men locked out all five deadlifts. Renowned deadlifter Rauno Heinla beat the rest of the pack by six seconds. This narrowed the overall field considerably; only one and a half points separated out the top four with Stoltman on top by a half-point over Novikov.

Rauno Heinla — 5 in 41.28 seconds

Oleksii Novikov — 5 in 47.91 seconds

Frederik Johansson — 5 in 50.60 seconds

Pa O’Dwyer — 5 in 61.35 seconds

Nicolas Cambi — 4 in 30.02 seconds

Aivars Šmaukstelis — 4 in 31.65 seconds

Shane Flowers — 4 in 31.73 seconds

Gavin Bilton — 4 in 32.77 seconds

Ondřej Fojtů — 4 in 35.23 seconds

Luke Stoltman — 4 in 52.76 seconds

Pavlo Kordiayaka — 4 in 62.53 seconds

Konstantine Janashia — 2 in 22.90 seconds

Event 4 — Viking Press

Misfortunate hit Sweden’s Fredrik Joansson on his Giants Live debut. As he was unracking the viking press, he suffered a knee injury that took him out of the remainder of the contest. 

Fojtů showed well here, winning the event with 16 reps of the huge logs. This pulled him up to second place, only a single point behind the leader, Novikov, with Stoltman half a point further back. With Skaukstelis trailing Stoltman by one point and Cambi another half a point back, any one of five men were in a position to take the overall win.

Ondřej Fojtů — 16 reps

Oleksii Novikov — 14 reps

Luke Stoltman — 13 reps (T-third)

Aivars Šmaukstelis — 13 reps (T-third)

Nicolas Cambi — 13 reps (T-third)

Pavlo Kordiayaka — 12 reps

Shane Flowers — 11 reps (T-seventh)

Gavin Bilton — 11 reps (T-seventh)

Pa O’Dwyer — 8 reps

Rauno Heinla — 6 reps

Frederik Johansson — no lift

Konstantine Janashia — withdrew

Event 5 – Atlas Stones

With five strongmen in contention for the title, it came down to the Atlas Stones to decide the victor. Flowers went in the second heat, setting a blistering time of 18.53 seconds for all five stones.

The fourth heat was between Stoltman and Šmaukstelis, and they were well matched. They loaded the first three stones in tandem. Stoltman moved ahead on the fourth stone, but Šmaukstelis picked up the pace to make it a dead heat on the fifth stone.

The rules state both their hands off the stone stop the clock, but it was too close to call, even after the judges reviewed the footage frame by frame. Stoltman and Šmaukstelis scored the exact same time: 18.58 seconds, only .05 seconds behind Flowers.

The final round was Fojtů and Novikov, but Novikov tore his biceps on the final stone and couldn’t finish the run, an unfortunate close to the competition.

Shane Flowers — 5 in 18.53 seconds

Aivars Šmaukstelis — 5 in 18.58 seconds (T-second)

Luke Stoltman — 5 in 18.58 seconds (T-second)

Rauno Heinla — 5 in 24.60 seconds

Pa O’Dwyer — 5 in 27.04 seconds

Pavlo Kordiayaka — 5 in 27.52 seconds

Gavin Bilton — 5 in 39.53 seconds

Oleksii Novikov — 4 in 21.07 seconds

Ondřej Fojtů — 4 in 21.32 seconds

Nicolas Cambi — 4 in 32.78 seconds

With the 2024 World’s Strongest Man (WSM only a couple of weeks away, these elite strongmen have little time to recover and will be back in action soon. We’ll see if Novikov’s injury is damaging enough to cause him to withdraw from the 2024 WSM, as Mateusz Kieliszkowski and Martins Licis have already done.

Featured image: @giantslivestrongman on Instagram

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