Strongman Chris presses for UK title

The 23-year-old is one of eight competitors who will be vying for the crown at the Odyssey Arena on Sunday.

“My preparations for the event have been going well,” he told the Larne Times. “I’ve been doing a lot of training at Larne Leisure Centre and at Sam’s Gym in Ballymoney. I am a lot heavier going into the event this year, which hopefully will be an advantage.”

Weighing in at 24 stone, Chris goes into the contest on the back of what has been a wonderful year. In April he won his second Junior Ireland Strongest Man title before finishing as runner-up in the Ulster Strongman Championship in Cookstown in May.

He faces a stiff challenge from the likes of Scotland’s Ken Nowicki and Richard Smith from Wales, but the local man says he will be giving it everything he has got.

His rigorous training routine involves three days per week of weightlifting and two days of events training which includes truck pulls and getting to grips with heavy stones. All that training requires a lot of fuel and he has been eating as much as he can to bulk up for the competition.

“I am literally eating as much as I can at the moment because this contest is about who can lift the biggest weights and who is actually the strongest competitor as opposed to who can move the quickest with certain weights. So the more bulk I have the better.

“I have been eating between eight to 10 chicken fillets a day, massive amounts of pasta and rice, plenty of protein and plenty of greens,” he said.

“I am confident going into this one,” he added. “There is big competition and Nowicki and Smith have competed really well in 2011, but my interest all year has been in this event and it will be a massive achievement if I win it.

“I’m really going into it as an underdog but I know that I have what it takes to beat these boys; it’s just a matter of doing it on the day.”