Recent items

Some of my best friends are Latvian

Democrats to decide presidential candidate at Gaŗezers

As far as we know, Rīga is still in the running

Russia and the Baltics

No way to raise a child

Order an iPhone, support a Latvian hacker

Picturing life in Ireland

A Michigan love story

It’s about time, Warren

Translating the Koran

Archive

Strongmen in Rīga

June 21, 2006

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