“United Strongmen’s goal is to make the weight class sport bigger and show the world that also smaller people can be strong, so adding new weight classes to our selection give more opportunities to get more athletic look to the events along with offering a lot more people the opportunity to hunt titles and compete against the competitors from other countries along with making new friends from the sport,” Jyrki Rantanen told IronMind.

“Another goal is also make a cleaner picture about strength sports—that´s why we have agreed to cooperate with FINADA and starting from 2015 United Strongman (US) will be the first strongman/woman organizer under proper doping control. 

“Yes, I realize that there might be some, who won´t come to compete in US shows when the testing starts, but my opinion is that we do not need them there as there´s plenty of people wanting to compete under doping testing also. Since publishing the topic some time ago I have had numerous supportive messages around the world due the subject.

“Naturally there´s also the group of people who are saying that it will be the death of the sport as people want to see freaks…I disagree…every freak is also someone’s son, father, daughter, mother, sister, brother etc. and they carry the worry about the ‘freak’s’ health if no-one else does.  Someone has to dare to take step forward in this time, when the use of doping in strength sports is more than ‘accepted…’ It won´t be in US competitions,” said Rantanen.

                                                       ###



Want to talk strength?  Join the IronMind Forum.
 
You can also follow IronMind on Twitter and on Facebook.