Sauve places on podium, competes in Finland

By Tyler Lowey, Times Reporter

Unfortunately, Strathmore is no longer home to Canada’s strongest man in the under 90-kilogram weight class.
Nolan Sauve, the defending national champion, returned home Sept. 24 stiff as a board, with a bronze medal from the National Strongman Championship Sept. 23 in Bathurst, N.B.
“I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t win the whole event again, but that’s the way these things go,” said Sauve. “I guess you can’t win them all.”
Sauve was sitting pretty heading into the penultimate event, the Husafell Stones. He finished third in the 100-metre Yoke walk with a time of 30.48 seconds, tied for first in the 130-pound axle press with 11 reps and placed second in the car deadlift with 10 reps.
It wasn’t so much the straw that broke his back, but a 310-pound pyramid rock.
“As I was warming up for the event, my back locked up on me and I couldn’t pick it up,” said Sauve. “I think I moved it one foot, whereas I’ll typically carry it over 250 feet.”
Last year, when he captured the national title, Sauve spent the better part of two months preparing for the event. This year, Sauve jammed in six different strongman events into the past two months, along with travelling halfway around the globe, as he prepared to defend his title.
“I was just too burnt out,” he said.
Sauve landed back at Calgary International Airport two days before leaving again for New Brunswick. The local lifter had just returned from the Strongman Champions League World Championship U105 and U90kg event Sept. 8 and 9 in Kokkola, Finland.
Attending the international event as an invite and as one of two Canadians, Sauve was matched against 20 other lifters from Australia, England, Poland and New Zealand, among other countries.
Sauve was lucky just to make it to the first event of the two-day competition.
The night before the show, Sauve was sick as a dog from food poisoning. Whether it’s food poisoning or a pulled hamstring, Sauve has been known to push adversity.
Needing to finish in the Top 12 to advance to the second day, Sauve placed 12th.
He would later place seventh, and took some time checking out the sights of Helsinki and making a quick pit stop in Iceland before returning home.
But all the competitions began to add up and take a toll on Sauve, bubbling up in the second-last event in New Brunswick.
With one event remaining, the goal of defending his title might have slipped away from him, yet Sauve still left everything on the table.
In the Stones Over Bar — a cousin of the Atlas Stones event — Sauve finished third, earning six points, enough to remain on the podium.
“I felt a little pressure heading into the event (as the defending champion), but I wasn’t expecting a whole bunch having just come back from Worlds,” said Sauve. “I was a little beat up, hadn’t trained in a week and a half, my sleep wasn’t ideal and I had flown a lot coming into the event. It was a tough competition.”
Exhausted, Sauve and his girlfriend Rachel Tunke, who accompanied him around the globe during all his events this summer, didn’t do any sightseeing in the Maritimes, and returned to Strathmore Sept. 24.
The book is basically closed on the weight-lifting season now for Sauve, despite another tempting Worlds competition next month in North Carolina.
“I think it’d be better if I took some time to rest up, relax, build up my strength again over the winter and see what next summer has in store,” said Sauve.