"Ukrainian Hercules" is third strongest man in the world (10/19/03)

"Ukrainian Hercules" is third strongest man in the world

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Vasyl Virastiuk is among the strongest persons on the planet - third to be exact - a spot he claimed after taking a bronze medal in the recent World's Strongest Man Contest held in Zambia on September 29.

In no way is this Ukrainian Hercules your standard, cut from a cloth strongman. He doesn't lift barbells in competition. Nor does he take part in body-building competitions although he has an Adonis-like build. And he didn't achieve much success with the shot put, a sport he abandoned several years ago when it became apparent it wouldn't give him a living.

Most importantly, he placed third in the world the first time he tried, even though until three months ago he considered the extreme sport "a hobby."

In 2000, Virastiuk, who is married and has a 3-month-old son, thought his athletic career had ended. He moved to Lviv and took a job doing what many muscle-bound men in Ukraine, or most anywhere else, tend to do: he became a bodyguard.

Then he met Volodymyr Kyba, president of the Strongman Federation of Ukraine, in 1999. Mr. Kyba liked what he saw in the soft spoken Ukrainian Hercules and with some persistence convinced Virastiuk, who was at first noncommittal, to compete in a strongman event in Crimea in 2000. After finally agreeing, Virastiuk, humbly won all five of the events he entered.

"I finally responded and went to the contest in Yalta, where I was pretty successful," explained Virastiuk, who then noted that "pretty successful" meant that he won all the competitions.

The 29-year-old Ivano Frankivsk native had finally discovered his true calling. It had turned out that his natural gift lay in his ability to move train cars and tractor-trailers several hundred yards, usually several at a time, often weighing in excess of 60 tons. He found he was also pretty good at lifting suitcases filled with 120 kilograms (approximately 265 lbs.) of concrete a piece, one in each hand, and carrying them 70 meters faster than anybody else in the world. In Zambia he did it in 24 seconds, a new world record.

He also realized that he had an unusual ability to push a horse cart filled with a ton of salt 20 meters faster than anybody, to say nothing of carrying logs or lifting concrete spheres two meters or so in diameter onto a platform.

After winning the Ukrainian championship in 2000 and repeating the next two years, Virastiuk made his first mark on the world stage with his win in Zambia, where the Ukrainian federation competed for the first time as well. Even so, only Mariusz Pudzianovskii of Poland, who retained his title as the world's strongest man and Zhendrunos Zavytskas of Lithuania, who repeated in the second spot, bested the Ukrainian novice. But not every time.

Virastiuk took first in the suitcase event, which is called the "farmer's walk" in the parlance of the sport. That, however, was not the moment he enjoyed the most, even though it is his favorite and his best exercise. In Zambia, he was also taken by the train pull, if only because of the way in which the event was staged.

"We pulled the train across the Zambeze Gorge. When you looked up you saw Victoria Falls. That was amazing," explained Virastiuk.

He called his experience in Zambia an important step in his quest to reach the top spot in a sport that is quickly gaining a worldwide audience.

"It is my dream to be called the strongest man in the world, if God wills it," said Virastiuk. "After Zambia I know my strengths and understand what I need to work on."

Virastiuk still considers himself new to the sport, especially on the international level. While he admitted that he had previously competed against the world champion Pudzvianovskii and other top talents in competitions sanctioned by the International Federation of Strongest Athletes, the governing body of the sport, he began to practice the sport as his profession only some three months ago.

"Before I only considered the sport a hobby," Virastiuk said.

After so much success as an amateur, now that he has finally began to take this sport seriously, only one question remains, and it is one that his competitors are probably scared to ask.

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