What Happened?
The 2008 94 kg Olympic Champion and clean and jerk world record holder Szymon Kolecki defeated the five time World’s Strongest Man Mariusz Pudzianowski in a controversial first round at a packed out 15,000 person Lodz’s Atlas Arena in Poland.
Kolecki, who weighed in 14 kg lighter than Pudzianowski, has most likely ended the 9+ year long MMA career of the ex-Strongman who tapped out after suffering an injury to his leg. Pudzianowski fell with on his back with his foot in extreme plantar flexion, trapped, stretched, and ultimately crushed under his enormous frame. Despite the localised injury being at the ankle joint, Mariusz frantically tapped out before clutching at his upper leg, clearly feeling extreme amounts of referred pain from the ankle injury.
No fighter wants to win in this way, and Szymon Kolecki was left relatively unsure of the appropriate reaction. Yes he had won, but he had not exactly proven that it was due to his better fighting ability. What made the whole situation even more difficult was that Kolecki had lost some support of the crowd after an inadvertent ‘low blow’ with his knee to Pudzianowski, causing long delays early on in the fight.
Szymon Kolecki now has a fight record of 7-1. In an interview with The First News Kolecki said – “When I made the decision to take part in the MMA, I had a plan for my development and career, which I am implementing step by step. At the beginning I wanted to gain experience, prepare myself to start in a prestigious KSW federation that was at a high level.”
Szymon Kolecki’s career will no doubt continue on. The 42 year old Mariusz Pudzianowski’s however may well have just ended.
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Szymon Kolecki Bio
Szymon Kolecki has won medals in two Olympic Games, taking the silver aged 19 in Sydney 2000 and the gold 8 years later in Beijing after being bumped up from silver due to Ilya Ilyin’s retroactive ban. One could make a case that Szymon Kolecki is amongst the most talented youngsters that this sport has ever seen, certainly the most exciting teenager of the 1998-2018 weightlifting era. Aged 19 Kolecki set the 65th highest Sinclair of all time, a 180 kg snatch and a 232.5 kg world record clean and jerk at the 2000 European Weightlifting Championships. This performance gave him a Sinclair of 468.8. Want to know how yours compares? Calculate your Sinclair and Robi here.