Reindeer Breeders and Strongmen Competed at ArcticMan 2015

As part of the XX open competitions for Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District (YANAD) Governor\’s Cup among the reindeer breeders, the ArcticMen-2015 tournament was held by the World Strongman Federation (WSF). Traditional stick pulling, a kind of ethnosport, was also included in its program.

The opening ceremony for the event was held with the participation of acting YANAD Governor Dmitry Kobylkin, Governor of the Tyumen region Vladimir Yakushev, and Special Guest of WSF — Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council of the Union of the UAE.

Traditional forms of physical activity of the Nenets people (the indigenous people of Yamal) are associated with the strongmen’s show by presence of the traditional stick pulling with a parallel direct grip. This grip is considered traditional as opposed to the cross grip, propagated by the Yakuts who invented their own kind of sport called \»maswrestling\».

Vladislav Redkin from Latvia, General Manager of the World Strongman Federation (WSF) and Member of the Executive Committee of the Yakut International Federation, became the judge in the traditional stick pulling tournament.

Out of the 10 athletes of the Arctic Region of the Baltic states and CIS, Antanas Abrutis, a Lithuanian, became the winner in traditional stick pulling. A week earlier he had won at the Arnold Classic 2015 tournament in the similar competitions by the Yakut rules. From the organizers of the ArcticMan tournament he received a diver’s watch, made by the experts of the Ural city of Zlatoust.

The program of the ArcticMen-2015 tournament consisted of five disciplines: truck-pull by the rope towards oneself, with hands, seated, (a 25 meter distance); lifting a 130 kg log, number of repetitions per 1-minute limit; Conan carousel with an apparatus of 350 kg; farmer’s walk in a time-restricted manner, with 2 apparatus 130 kg each; SUV deadlift, number of repetitions per 1-minute limit.

The winner of the ArcticMan-2015 tournament of the World Strongman Federation (WSF) was Valery Savin from Chelyabinsk, whose rivals were Ari Gunnarsson (Iceland), Tarmo Mitt (Estonia), Vyacheslav Astapenkov (Belarus), Antanas Abrutis (Lithuania), Rolands Gulbis (Latvia) Sergei Trubitsin (Uzbekistan), Anders Lindbland (Sweden) and Anders Engen and Tim Enersi (Norway).

Ten teams from the municipalities of the Yamal-Nenets and Nenets Autonomous District were competing for the main prize of the YANAD Governor tournament. Among the individual championship winners were:

female reindeer racing — Valentina Khudi from Yamal District;
male reindeer racing — Pavel Khudi from Yamal District;
throwing the lasso on the poles — Aleksey Taiberi from Priuralsky District;
stick pulling — Sergei Kanev of Nadymsky District;
sledge jumping — Ilya Khorolya from Panayevsky;
traditional wrestling — Maxim Serotetto from Panayevsky;
national triple jump — Alexander Vanuyto from Purovsky District.