A West Mercia officer form Shropshire has won a national ‘Strongman’ competition held in Lincolnshire.
Detective Stuart Edwards has been a West Mercia police officer for over 11 years and is working towards a detective’s accreditation in the Proactive CID team based in Shrewsbury.
Stuart first got into ‘Strongman’ in 2011 whilst working on patrol shifts in Oswestry having been invited to compete in a local charity strongman event at Oswestry Rugby Club.
“I had competed in a few local competitions and done quite well but was injured on duty damaging both my shoulders while restraining a young man following a mental health breakdown. These injuries required two surgeries and nearly two years of recovery. In 2017 I was able to return to competition level and won Shropshire’s Strongest Man.”
At the beginning of the year, Stuart was approached and encouraged by two previous supervisors Insp Tracy Ryan and Insp Charlie Parker who had heard about the Police Sport UK’s hosting of the ‘UK’s Strongest Police Officer 2019’. The annual competition was to be held on 23 June 2019 in Lincoln. The competition was open to anyone who is a police employee from officer to police staff in order to be as inclusive as possible.
In March he began training for the competition, giving himself 16 weeks to prepare.
Stuart says of the training: “Although this seems like a lot of time Strongman is a brutal sport with the risk of injury extremely high due to the unnatural loads and extreme pressure the body is put through. This meant 50 training sessions lasting up to 3hrs per session and over the 16 weeks it meant I had to consume nearly 500,000 calories!”
When the day of the competition finally arrived, police officers from all over the UK as far away as Northern Ireland and Scotland made their way to Lincolnshire to compete in their respective categories for the title of the ‘UK’s Strongest Police Officer’.
Stuart competed in the Open weight category and following the first 4 events, three entrants were tied for first place, it all came down to the atlas stones, which means the fastest man to pick up and load the stones wins.
Once the event was finished came the long wait for the winners to be announced, with Stuart being revealed as the winner.