The 2026 Europe’s Strongest Man took place on April 11th in Leeds, England. As one of the most highly anticipated competitions of the year, it featured a dozen incredible athletes and put them through a series of five tests. Ultimately, Ondřej Fojtů produced an unbelievable performance and claimed the crown ahead of multiple former champions.
Ondřej Fojtů’s performance at the 2026 Europe’s Strongest Man was arguably the greatest one he has achieved over the course of his career so far. He won four out of five events at the competition and ended up winning with a significant margin. As such, Ondřej is definitely someone worth following at the upcoming 2026 World’s Strongest Man, where he will look to achieve another impressive result.
2026 Europe’s Strongest Man Results
- Ondřej Fojtů — 54.5 points
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 47.5 points
- Adam Bishop — 42.5 points
- Paddy Haynes — 41.5 points
- Matyáš Funiok — 38 points
- Ben Glasscock — 34 points
- Luke Richardson — 32 points
- Patrick Eibel — 27.5 points
- Kevin Hazeleger — 27 points
- Gavin Bilton — 21.5 points
- Dawid Pakulski — 16.5 points
- Conor Curran — 7.5 points
Related: Luke Stoltman Withdraws From 2026 World’s and Europe’s Strongest Man After Breaking His Leg
Event One — Webster Stone Walk
The Webster Stones have gained quite a reputation on the pro Strongman scene, consisting of two unevenly weighted boulders coming out to 136 kilograms (299.8 pounds) and 113 kilograms (249.1 pounds). So, the first event of the 2026 Europe’s Strongest Man tasked the athletes with carrying the stones as far as they could. The distances they achieved were used as their scores.
Ondřej Fojtů proved that he came with the intention of claiming the title on the very first event of the day. He carried the stones for a whopping 51.75 meters, beating eleven other men with a significant margin.
The 2023 Europe’s Strongest Man, Pavlo Kordiyaka, finished in second place. He covered a distance of exactly 40 meters and received 11 points for his effort. The third place went to Adam Bishop, who had an incredible performance at Britain’s Strongest Man competition earlier this year and continued to impress at an international level. Bishop carried the stones for a total of 34.99 meters.
- Ondřej Fojtů — 51.75 meters
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 40.00 meters
- Adam Bishop — 34.99 meters
- Patrick Eibel — 33.10 meters
- Luke Richardson — 31.86 meters
- Matyáš Funiok — 27.49 meters
- Paddy Haynes — 26.16 meters
- Ben Glasscock — 25.54 meters
- Kevin Hazeleger — 21.28 meters
- Conor Curran — 20.76 meters
- Dawid Pakulski — 13.38 meters
- Gavin Bilton — 11.25 meters
Event Two — Log Press
The second event of the 2026 Europe’s Strongest Man was all about upper body strength and conditioning. Specifically, the athletes had to perform a Log Lift with a 150-kilogram (330.7-pound) implement. They were given 60 seconds to achieve as many reps as possible, leaving no time to rest.
Ondřej Fojtů came into the event as the favorite, having showcased his overhead pressing abilities on a number of occasions in the past. He did not disappoint, having achieved a total of nine repetitions to win the second event in a row.
Luke Richardson also put up a remarkable performance on the Log Lift, achieving eight reps and beating everyone except Fojtů. Pavlo Kordiyaka claimed third, displaying great technique on each of his seven reps. However, he had to share his third spot with Matyáš Funiok and Kevin Hazeleger since they also locked out seven reps.
- Ondřej Fojtů — 9 reps
- Luke Richardson — 8 reps
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 7 reps
- Matyáš Funiok — 7 reps
- Kevin Hazeleger — 7 reps
- Gavin Bilton — 6 reps
- Ben Glasscock — 6 reps
- Adam Bishop — 4 reps
- Patrick Eibel — 4 reps
- Dawid Pakulski — 4 reps
- Paddy Haynes — 3 reps
- Conor Curran — 2 reps
Event Three — Axle Deadlift
The midpoint of the competition was the Axle Deadlift, a well-known variation of the deadlift exercises that features a thicker and less flexible barbell. The weight of the bar came out to 350 kilograms (771.6 pounds), setting the task of locking out as many repetitions as possible within the 60-second time limit.
Paddy Haynes has won multiple deadlift for reps events during his career, which made him the one to watch in the third event of 2026 Europe’s Strongest Man. He did end up topping the leaderboards with eight reps in total but had to share the top spot with Ondřej Fojtů, who also locked out eight reps.
The battle for second place was equally interesting, as Adam Bishop and Patrick Eibel ended up in a tie as well. They locked out seven reps each and had to share the points.
- Ondřej Fojtů — 8 reps
- Paddy Haynes — 8 reps
- Adam Bishop — 7 reps
- Patrick Eibel — 7 reps
- Matyáš Funiok — 6 reps
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 5 reps
- Ben Glasscock — 5 reps
- Luke Richardson — 4 reps
- Kevin Hazeleger — 4 reps
- Gavin Bilton — 4 reps
- Dawid Pakulski — 3 reps
- Conor Curran — 3 reps
Event Four — Farmers Walk Into Power Stairs
The penultimate event of the 2026 Europe’s Strongest Man consisted of two parts. Firstly, the athletes had to carry two Farmers Walk implements weighing 150 kilograms (330.7 pounds) each. They then proceeded to the Power Stairs, where they encountered two 250-kilogram (551.2-pound) implements, both of which had to be carried to the top of the stairs. It was a timed event, pushing the athletes to complete everything in the shortest time possible.
The fourth event saw a familiar name at the top of the leaderboards, as Ondřej Fojtů claimed an event win once again. After showcasing immense power and static strength on earlier events, Ondřej displayed mind-blowing speed on the Farmers Walk and Power Stairs. Consequently, he finished the event in 25.84 seconds.
Pavlo Kordiyaka placed in the top three once again, having finished the event one and a half seconds after Fojtů. Paddy Haynes reached the top of the power stairs one additional second after Kordiyaka.
- Ondřej Fojtů — 25.84 seconds
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 27.21 seconds
- Paddy Haynes — 28.28 seconds
- Matyáš Funiok — 31.01 seconds
- Adam Bishop — 31.15 seconds
- Ben Glasscock — 31.43 seconds
- Luke Richardson — 33.03 seconds
- Dawid Pakulski — 33.95 seconds
- Gavin Bilton — 34.97 seconds
- Patrick Eibel — 39.61 seconds
- Kevin Hazeleger — 42.27 seconds
- Conor Curran — 53.53 seconds
Event Five — Castle Stones
As is the case in many strongman competitions, the 2026 Europe’s Strongest Man concluded with the Castle Stones. It followed the usual Atlas Stone format with the athletes lifting and loading a series of five implements ranking in weight from 100 kilograms (220.5 pounds) to 180 kilograms (396.8 pounds).
All twelve competitors finished the entire Castle Stone run, which proved how stacked the lineup was. However, Paddy Haynes was by far the quickest among them, doing so in a time of 18.30 seconds.
Adam Bishop placed second with a time of 20.19 seconds, narrowly beating Pavlo Kordiyaka’s time of 20.84. Ondřej Fojtů placed sixth in the final event but was still crowned the overall winner.
- Paddy Haynes — 5 in 18.30 s
- Adam Bishop — 5 in 20.19 s
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 5 in 20.84 s
- Ben Glasscock — 5 in 21.04 s
- Kevin Hazeleger — 5 in 21.16 s
- Ondřej Fojtů — 5 in 21.48 s
- Gavin Bilton — 5 in 21.89 s
- Matyáš Funiok — 5 in 22.04 s
- Dawid Pakulski — 5 in 22.15 s
- Luke Richardson — 5 in 24.13 s
- Patrick Eibel — 5 in 26.23 s
- Conor Curran — 5 in 39.38 s
Related: 2026 Arnold Strongman Classic Results — Mitchell Hooper Wins 4th Consecutive Title
Ondřej Fojtů’s victory at the 2026 Europe’s Strongest Man marks his first gold medal from the major international competitions. Nonetheless, he has stood on multiple podiums already and even placed sixth at the 2025 World’s Strongest Man competition. It is, however, clear that Ondřej is stronger than ever, leaving no doubt that he will achieve plenty of success in the upcoming competitions and years.
