Gingerbeast Gears up to defend his title
Only a couple days till we FINALLY get to crown South Africa's Strongest man and the Gingerbeast is holding nothing back as he looks to retain his title.
Markus Jansen Van Vuuren popularly known as The Gingerbeast is a South African Strongman competitor. He currently holds the title of strongest u80kg man in South Africa, a title he won back in 2019.
The Gingerbeast placed 4th at Africa's Strongest Man 2020 and also holds the African Deadlift Record for U80kg and the African record for the Apollon's Axle Clean & Press in the U90kg division.
EYES ON THE PRIZE
When youre number you've gotta double up your efforts because everybody's gunning for your head! They want what you've got, they want to take your spot! Having watched over his IG feed over the past few months I have no doubt he's been hard at work. Gingerbeast has been training with the objective of defending his crown and stay at the submitt of the division for another 12 months.
Well I'm going to defend my SA's U80kg strongest man title so to go out and give it my all to win is definitely my biggest goal for this competition. Feeling good with most of the events that we're doing and excited to compete against and along some of the best and strongest athletes SA has ever produced.
WHY THE NAME GINGERBEAST
Coz his hair is distinctly ginger for one! But there's actually a dope backstory where Markus explains how he got the name.
I originally made my IG handle "gingerbeard strongman" but after I pulled my U80kg African deadlift record in 2018, the strongman athletes decided I'm now Gingerbeast, and the nickname stuck from there. Llewellyn Cordier was the one to originally call out Gingerbeast over the microphone when he MC'd for our competitions
HISTORY
Markus has been training for many years but only started doing strongman back in 2017. In that same year believe it or not he won SA's strongest man U80kg novice and in the following year he went on to take the SA's strongest man U80kg amateur in 2018.
In 2020 he received an invitation to represent South Africa at the 2021 Official Strongman Games, an honour which he described as 'one of the greatest in my life'.
SOUTH AFRICAS STRONGEST 2022
DATE: The event will be held on the weekend of th 6 - 7 August 2022
VENUE: Emerald Resort & Casino
EVENTS: Axle Push Press, Axle deadlift, Distance carry, Yoke Walk and Medley.
The Men's weight classes in South Africa's Strongest Man are as follows:
- U80kg
- U90kg
- U105kg
- Open.
- Master u105kg
- Master Open.
SA's Strongest Man 2022 medley prep done and dusted. Happy with how it felt this morning, feels like I can definitely carry the implements a lot further than what I did in training. Grip is feeling good, technique is feeling a lot better and overall I'm feeling happy about how training has been going.
To all those competing in the U80kg that haven't been pushing themselves to the max, you can kiss your title hopes goodbye because Gingerbeast is on a mission and its gonna take a monumental effort to stop him!
