Flathead Steinholder Bests Canadian Strongman in Sam Adams-Sponsored Exhibition Match
As part of his efforts to win the 2023 World’s Strongest Man competition, Mitchell Hooper hauled a 50,000-pound bus down a roughly 80-foot course in 30 seconds.
By Mike Kordenbrock
The Flathead Valley’s top steinholding competitor, Dave Sturzen, added another signature win to his resume last weekend when he defeated Canadian strongman Mitchell Hooper in a Sam Adams-sponsored steinholding exhibition at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.
Sturzen, a Kalispell X-ray technologist, said that the field was made up of other qualifying steinholders who had participated in Sam Adams’ “Hoist Like A Strongman” steinholding competitions, as well as Hooper.
Hooper, the 2023 World’s Strongest Man, and the winner of the 2023 and 2024 Arnold Strongman Classic, has deadlifted over 800 pounds, bench pressed over 460 pounds, and squatted over 800 pounds. As part of his efforts to win the 2023 World’s Strongest Man competition, Hooper hauled a 50,000-pound bus down a roughly 80-foot course in 30 seconds.
A stein filled to competition levels with beer is about five pounds.
Despite Sturzen clocking a time of 23 minutes and 22 seconds — good enough for the record if the hold is ratified by the U.S. Steinholding Association — during a Sam Adams qualifier event in Butte, the Kalispell steinholder only managed an 11 minute and 35 second hold in Denver.
But it wasn’t the altitude, or nerves, that he says cut his time so much shorter, but rather that he was saddled with an overfilled stein. Typically, competition steins are filled to about two fingers from the rim of the glass, but Sturzen said at the Sam Adams competition, the steins were filled to the brim. The concern then becomes not weight, but managing to hold one’s arm steady enough to avoid spilling. Even the sort of arm adjustments that are allowable in a steinholding competition become risky in the scenario Sturzen faced in Denver. Typically he said he stares ahead and goes to his happy place when he’s trying to pull off a lengthy stein hold, but last weekend Sturzen said he nervously stared down the length of his arm at his glass the whole time.
“I don’t think anyone was prepared for steins filled to the brim,” Sturzen said. “I trained once with it filled, just in case this happened. Literally, any slight movement at all and it’s game over.”
Sturzen said he was the last one holding for several minutes after the rest of the field had dropped out. Hooper, he said, was friendly and positive about the exhibition, cheering Sturzen on after he had dropped out and even offering up a shoutout to Sturzen’s kids.
Sturzen said that he believes his advantage over Hooper came in part because of their different training plans, and different physiques. There’s more to steinholding than explosive strength, and size, where Hooper, weighing in at 6 foot 3 and 320 pounds holds a 5-inch, 40-pound advantage over Sturzen. Longer arms, for example, affect leverage, and muscle fatigue as they extend out further from the body.
After Sturzen officially ended the competition, Hooper hoisted his arm up, and in the process lifted Sturzen himself up.
“It was quite the competition,” Sturzen said.