Strongman contest draws a crowd

By JUNO OGLEDaily Press StaffGods and goddesses walk among us — at least figuratively.Ironworks 24-7 Fitness, located at 1775 U.S. 180 E., named the god and goddess of the stones Saturday to cap off its sixth annual Ironstrongman competition, which saw contestants lifting and throwing increasingly heavy weights.The Ironstrongman was started at the gym by owners Jeremy and Christy Gonzales, who took over the gym in 2014. A Silver City native and Army veteran, Jeremy died in 2021 at age 38.“He had a passion for strongman, so I wanted to keep that going. We had a team here already, so I took over that,” said daughter Ashley Gonzales, a personal trainer at the gym.Saturday’s competition brought a number of athletes from Albuquerque as well as local members of the gym. Christy said one year, a competitor came from Wyoming.Winners of each competition received trophies — topped by tire replicas for second and third place and a stone for first place — and more.“All those that won, they qualified to compete in the national competition in Colorado in June 2024,” Christy said.Saturday’s 27 competitors were a few more than last year’s, Ashley said, but it has attracted as many as 40 in the past, Christy said.The athletes perform in five different contests of strength. In tire medley, they must flip four successively larger tires twice within 90 seconds. In Conan’s wheel and sandbag medley, competitors have 75 seconds to complete one full circle carrying a weighted pivot arm, then throw a sandbag over a bar that’s 10 feet high for women and 12 feet high for men.In the circus dumbbells, they lift large dumbbells with one arm above their heads, with each round adding weight until only one man and one woman are left standing. In the Jeep/Razor deadlift, they see who can do the most repetitions in deadlifting an off-road vehicle.But it’s the penultimate competition, the god and goddess of the stones, that is the most fun and exemplifies what the competition is all about, the Gonzaleses and competitors agreed.In that contest, athletes compete, one at a time, to see who can lift the most of 10 consecutively heavier stones onto a flatbed truck. For women, the stones range from 120 to 300 pounds, and for the men, they range from 240 to 400 pounds.Atziry Apodaca said she didn’t start lifting weights until several years after she competed as a cross-country runner at Western New Mexico University. Jeremy Gonzales first invited her to try the Ironstrongman, and this year’s was her third one.“For me, it’s more like trying to see what my body can do and just having fun with it,” she said.Although she usually competes in the women’s lightweight division, Apodaca bumped up to the middleweight class Saturday.“I really am just trying to see what I can do with their weight class, because it is a little heavier than what I would usually do,” she said. “It’s a fun attempt, really, but I am looking forward to doing 2024 nationals for lightweight.”Saturday, though, she had her eye set on lifting the fourth stone, which weighed in at 215 pounds.“If I do that, my day will be made,” she said with a laugh.When her time came, she did it, raising both hands in victory as she dropped the stone onto the trailer. Overall, Apodaca came in third in the middleweight division.Anesia Caraveo took the stop spot in that division, aided by hefting 80 pounds over her head to become the last woman standing in the circus dumbbell contest.She lives in Albuquerque, but her fiancé is a Silver City firefighter, so she trains in both cities. This was her seventh year of strongman competition, although she said she took a year off while studying to be an emergency medical technician.She competed in nationals three years ago in New York City.“I was named 14th strongest woman in the nation,” she said.Her goal is to be in the top 10 at next year’s nationals, she said.It was Sonja Schofield who took the goddess title and overall win for the women, though, lifting the 250-pound stone.Her mother, Vicky Schofield, and aunt, Bernice Gill, both made the trip from Albuquerque with her to watch the competition.“I love it. She’s amazingly strong,” Vicky said. “We follow her everywhere.”Her daughter organizes her own strongman competition in Albuquerque, with proceeds going toward a women’s shelter, Vicky said.Vicky and her sister, ages 70 and 73, respectively, are no strangers to weightlifting themselves, they said. They’re competitive powerlifters.On the men’s side, Samuel Collopy was the overall winner in the men’s heavyweight division, helped along by his god of the stones title from heaving nine of the stones to the truck bed, ending with the 380-pound stone.Nate Beck of Silver City was a contender in the men’s middleweight category in just his second time in the local competition. He said he started lifting at Ironworks to shed some weight gained during the pandemic.“Before COVID I was at 159 pounds, and after COVID I was 215, so it was like, ‘I need to start moving,’” he said.He played football in high school but after that, he said he gave up on athletics.“Probably from like [ages] 18 to 27, I didn’t even lift,” he said. “It’s been a quick reentry in weightlifting.”He said he had watched strongman competitions as a kid and decided to try out the Ironstrongman two years ago. He’s now taken part in four strongman competitions.“I did the Border Beast Battle in El Paso in March, and I actually won the novice class. That was with nine competitors, so it was a pretty stacked class,” he said.James Reyes came into weightlifting a bit later in life.“I’m a late bloomer at 40 years old,” he said with a laugh.He was inspired to start in 2017 to help form a bond with his younger brother, Javier Reyes, who also competed Saturday.“This is the first one that I was able to finish all the way through, because I used to get hurt,” he said. “This is my third, and I’m doing good.”He did, in fact, finish well, at second place overall in the middleweight class, followed by Beck, and his brother, Javier.Even though it was a competition, for many of the athletes, the sense of camaraderie is what attracts them to the contests. Throughout the day, contestants shouted encouragement to each other and even coached each other when lifts got difficult.“It’s amazing. Awesome people and strong people, strong-minded, and it’s a friendly environment,” Reyes said.“It’s a great community,” Apodaca said. “Even though we are in competition, everybody cheers for each other. We all understand the struggle that it takes to get prepped for things like this and how difficult it can be.”“Everyone supports each other, everyone encourages each other,” Caraveo said. “It doesn’t matter if you get the rep or you don’t. Everyone’s there to cheer you on.”Juno Ogle may be reached at [email protected].