June 21, 2006
Strongmen in Rīga
It was 1:30 in the morning and, for some reason, we could not sleep. So we turned on the television to kill some time. Clicking through the channels, something caught our eye on OLN. We lingered and, sure enough, found that we were watching something taking place in Rīga: a rerun of the IFSA Strongman European Championship, an event that took place in July 2005. Among the competitors was hometown favorite Raimonds Bergmanis.
The strongman competition was somewhat surreal, featuring events such as “Conan’s Wheel” and “Atlas Stones.” But it was made more surreal because of the Latvian venue, the famed Mežaparks open-air theater, perhaps best known as the site of song festivals. To top it off, one could clearly see that Mežaparks was covered with advertising from various event sponsors, such as Aldaris beer and Radio SWH. The competitors, too, served as bulging billboards. In one event, they wore T-shirts proclaiming “Rīga - City of Inspiration,” but in the next “Latvenergo,” followed by “Rīgas Brīvosta.”
Lithuania’s Zydrunas Savickas won the competition. Bergmanis came in fourth.
We headed back to bed, hoping to store up some strength of our own.
Andris Straumanis is editor of Latvians Online.
The article may be found online at http://latviansonline.com/index.php/ephemera/article/1706/
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