Refreshed, clean Sauve ready to lift again

By Tyler Lowey, Times Reporter

After putting his body through the gauntlet last summer, Strathmore’s Nolan Sauve is taking it easy this summer, but still competing against the strongest men around.
Coming off last summer’s season that saw the 27-year-old Sauve compete in over eight Strongman events, the local weight lifter has dialed it back and will only be competing in his second event of the summer this weekend in Airdrie.
“I think it’s helped my body to only be in one event so far. I was pretty worn down last season and didn’t feel like getting up to too much after it all ended,” said Sauve.
The Strathmore product will be putting his best stuff forward this Saturday at CrossFit 403 for the Canada’s Strongest Natural Man event.
Most Strongman competitions aren’t drug tested, but this will be the second event for Sauve this season that bans any kind of muscle-enhancing steroid.
“I don’t take any extra pride or anything like that knowing I’m clean when I go up against some of these other guys that are juicing. It doesn’t bother me at all,” said Sauve. “My thought is that, I’ve always been strong without that stuff, so why start? Even if I was juiced out to the nines, I could still have a bad event and lose. So what’s the point of it then?”
Sauve knows other lifters that take performance-enhancing drugs and knows that it’s a hassle to figure out how to do them properly and as safely as possible.
“Some guys have their own doctors that help them out with it. That takes a lot of time and money. Not to mention all the health risks that comes along with it. It’s just easier not to,” said Sauve.
In his first drug-tested event this spring, Sauve won gold in the Western Canada’s Strongest Natural Man event at the end of April at SAIT. He currently has the four-foot tall trophy sitting on his front porch until he finds a good spot for it.
Competing in drug-tested events is the new approach for Sauve, along with shrinking his schedule.
For the past three years, Sauve competed in the Canadian Alliance of Amateurs Strength Athletes (CAASA). Lifting in the CAASA allowed Sauve to travel more for events and provided him the opportunity to compete for the national title, which he won two years ago and placed third in this past season.
“This year I just wanted to focus on local, nearby events to cut down my travel and try to get to another worlds event later this year,” said Sauve.
Two years ago, Sauve finished eighth at the Giants Live 2 event in North Carolina. Last year he placed fifth at the Finland Strongman Championship.
The date and location for this year’s worlds is not set, but the format to qualify is completely new for Sauve and very modern, as hopeful athletes need to submit a video of them weightlifting in order to qualify.
Sauve has until mid-September to film himself weighing the weights, and doing the log press, deadlift and farm walk, and then submit it for review.
“It’s a little more time consuming, but it’s what I have to do to get to worlds,” said Sauve. “I think having qualifying like this opens the field up even more to people that wouldn’t normally be able to attend a qualifying event.”
As he enters his late 20s, Sauve has found a new way to rest his body during the season, found new competitions to enter in and dominate, and now has found a new way to qualify in hopes to become a new world champion. But to him, it’s all the same in the end.
“I just like going out and competing against the best around and hopefully I perform good in the competitions. That’s all I can ask for these days,” said Sauve.