The Strongman Champions League (SCL) is a series of competitions that are held all over the world across the entire year. So, the 2023 season has already featured a number of contests, with the most recent one being the 2023 Strongman Champions League Cyprus. This elite competition took place on October 7th, in Limassol, which provided the perfect conditions for an incredible battle of numerous world-class Strongmen. In the end, when all five events had wrapped up, the points got summarized, and Pavlo Kordiyaka emerged as the winner.
In the first two events of the competition, it didn’t look like Pavlo Kordiyaka would win. Instead, Kane Francis put up a brilliant start to the 2023 Strongman Champions League Cyprus. However, Kane later made some mistakes, and Pavlo capitalized on them. Pavlo’s experience and lack of weaknesses ultimately led him to victory.
2023 Strongman Champions League Cyprus Results
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 48 points
- Kane Francis — 45 points
- Evans Aryee — 41 points
- Ervin Toots — 34 points
- Kevin Hazeleger — 31 points
- Andrea Invernizzi — 30 points
- Peter Juhasz — 29 points
- Sebastian Kurek — 25 points
- Alex Cristolovean — 17 points
- Dan Harrison — 16 points
- Hristo Muskov — 10 points
Related: 2023 Strongman Champions League England Results — Shane Flowers Takes Gold
Event One — Bus Pull
The first event of the 2023 Strongman Champions League Cyprus was spectacular since the competitors had to pull a giant 15,000-kilogram (33,069-pound) bus for a distance of 20 meters. They also had just 60 seconds to accomplish this task.
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The first event turned out to be very tight, as the seven fastest athletes all finished within just 2 seconds. However, it was Kane Francis who took the most points with a time of 32.09 seconds.
Kevin Hazeleger also put in a beastly performance as he pulled the bus as if it did not weigh 15 tons. He was still just slightly slower than Kane, but having crossed the finish line at the 32.66-second mark, Kevin placed second.
- Kane Francis — 32.09 s
- Kevin Hazeleger — 32.66 s
- Andrea Invernizzi — 33.47 s
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 33.87 s
- Dan Harrison — 33.94 s
- Evans Aryee — 34.12 s
- Ervin Toots — 34.15 s
- Peter Juhasz — 34.81 s
- Alex Cristolovean — 35.47 s
- Sebastian Kurek — 36.66 s
- Hristo Muskov — 39.52 s
Event Two — Deadlift
The second event of the 2023 Strongman Champions League Cyprus was the Car Deadlift. However, the exact weight that the competitors had to deadlift was not revealed, presumably because it was complicated to calculate. Regardless, the fact that they were deadlifting a pick-up truck for as many reps as possible was still incredibly impressive.
Evans Aryee was among the first athletes to perform the second event, but he managed to set the mark at 20 incredible repetitions on the Car Deadlift. It was immediately clear that this could be the winning number of reps, and that is how it indeed played out after all competitors gave their all.
While he was not able to match Aryee, Kane Francis managed to lock out 18 repetitions, which was still better than anyone apart from the incredible performance of Evans. So, Kane claimed the points that go with second place and solidified his lead at the start of the competition.
Pavlo Kordiyaka got one rep less than Kane Francis and thus finished one place below him. This put him four points behind Kane on the overall leaderboards after only two events were done.
- Evans Aryee — 20 reps
- Kane Francis — 18 reps
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 17 reps
- Sebastian Kurek — 16 reps
- Ervin Toots — 15 reps
- Dan Harrison — 14 reps
- Kevin Hazeleger — 12 reps
- Andrea Invernizzi — 11 reps
- Hristo Muskov — 10 reps
- Alex Cristolovean — 6 reps
- Peter Juhasz — 0 reps
Event Three — Loading Race
The 2023 Strongman Champion League Cyprus continued with a Loading Race, where athletes took on four implements. The first two implements weighed 110 kilograms (242.5 pounds), while the other two weighed 120 kilograms (264.6 pounds). Each implement had to be carried for a distance of 10 meters.
The third event proved to be a battle between two men, Pavlo Kordiyaka and Kane Francis, both of whom were on a whole new level compared to the others. The Ukrainian athlete, Pavlo, got the better of Kane, as his time of 21.63 seconds was faster by the smallest of margins. So, Kane had to settle for second place with a time of 21.68 seconds.
A separate battle ensued for third place as well, since Peter Juhasz and Ervin Toots had a very close race. Juhasz came out a bit more satisfied, finishing 0.80 seconds before Toots and claiming third place.
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 4 in 21.63 s
- Kane Francis — 4 in 21.68 s
- Peter Juhasz — 4 in 26.00 s
- Ervin Toots — 4 in 26.81 s
- Sebastian Kurek — 4 in 27.44 s
- Evans Aryee — 4 in 28.35 s
- Hristo Muskov — 4 in 29.50 s
- Kevin Hazeleger — 4 in 31.53 s
- Alex Cristolovean — 4 in 33.66 s
- Andrea Invernizzi — 4 in 39.62 s
- Dan Harrison — 4 in 49.78 s
Event Four — Log Lift
Log Lift is often considered one of the most vital events in Strongman competitions, so it was featured in the 2023 Strongman Champions League Cyprus as well. The weight of the Log came out to be mind-blowing 150 kilograms. A further challenge was to complete as many reps as possible.
The Italian Strongman, Antonia Invernizzi, had the strongest shoulders out of the eleven competitors and locked out five repetitions with the huge log. Thus, he singled himself out at the top and took maximum points.
The battle for second place in the penultimate event of the competition saw a three-way tie between Kordiyaka, Juhasz, and Aryee. Each of the three athletes locked out four repetitions, so there was no way to separate them. Consequently, they had to share the points.
- Andrea Invernizzi — 5 reps
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 4 reps
- Peter Juhasz — 4 reps
- Evans Aryee — 4 reps
- Kevin Francis — 3 reps
- Kevin Hazeleger — 3 reps
- Alex Cristolovean — 3 reps
- Ervin Toots — 2 reps
- Sebastian Kurek — 1 reps
- Hristo Muskov — 0 reps
- Dan Harrison — 0 reps
Event Five — Atlas Stones
The final event of the 2023 Strongman Champions League Cyprus was the Atlas Stone, which in fact featured an extremely heavy set of implements. Although four stones were used instead of the usual five, their weight ranged from 130 kilograms (296.6 pounds) to 200 kilograms (440.9 pounds).
Pavlo Kordiyaka had to rank above Kane Francis on the Atlas Stones to win the 2023 Strongman Champions League Cyprus. Based on his final time to lift all four Atlas Stones, Pavlo won the final event as well as the competition.
One of Estonia’s greatest Strongmen, Ervin Toots, jumped up a few places on the overall leaderboards due to his second place finish on the Atlas Stones. He turned out to be the only man to finish within a few seconds of Pavlo, loading all the stones in a time of 26.10 seconds. The third place finisher, Evans Aryee, loaded his fourth stone 25 seconds after Ervin Toots.
- Pavlo Kordiyaka — 4 in 22.12 s
- Ervin Toots — 4 in 26.10 s
- Evans Aryee — 4 in 51.90 s
- Kane Francis — 4 in 58.38 s
- Peter Juhasz — 3 in 15.71 s
- Kevin Hazeleger — 3 in 18.92 s
- Sebastian Kurek — 3 in 21.45 s
- Andrea Invernizzi — 3 in 26.25 s
- Alex Cristolovean — 3 in 66.05 s
- Dan Harrison — 2 in 11.20 s
- Hristo Muskov — 1 in 24.54 s
Note: The silver medalist, Kane Francis, shared video footage of him performing all five events. You can check those out here.
Related: 2023 Strongman Champions League Serbia Results – Gavin Bilton Claims His First International Win
Pavlo Kordiyaka has been a real force to reckon with lately, having put up extremely dominant displays throughout the past few years. He has so far taken part in 21 International and National competitions and taken six victories. His greatest one came earlier this year, when he was crowned as the 2023 Europe’s Strongest Man. Moreover, Pavlo just recently turned 28-years-old, meaning he still has multiple years to further improve his resume.
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