‘I’m having a pretty good year’
Ben Eoin man claims three titles at national arm wrestling championship
It could have been a clean sweep for Mark MacPhail, 39, at the 2016 Canadian Arm Wrestling Championships in Saskatoon, Sask., but his body told him it was better to err on the side of caution.
The Ben Eoin resident had won both the righthand and lefthand 100 kilo Masters events on Saturday, July 2, and was hoping to do the same in the 100 kilo Open competition the next day, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“I was eating breakfast on Sunday morning and I put my right arm on the back of the booth, and then the whole front of my pec and my rear delt went into spasm,” he said. “I looked over at the president of the Nova Scotia association, Rick Pinkney, who was sitting at breakfast with me, and I told him that I would try to prevent an injury by just going lefthanded that day.
“He said that was probably a smart move.”
It was a wise move, as MacPhail was able to best all comers with his left hand to claim the 100 kilo Masters title, giving him three national championships for his weekend’s work.
“I’m having a pretty good year,” he admitted. “I actually won my 27th provincial title three months ago. And I actually compete in two sports — I also won the Nova Scotia powerlifting bench press championship two weeks ago.”
MacPhail was impressed with the competition in Saskatoon.
“With the Masters class, I kind of thought I’d walk through it , but I ended up having a couple of tough, tough battles righthanded. It kind of threw for a loop a little bit. I was feeling really good coming into this competition and was almost anticipating walking away with four titles, but sometimes that doesn’t happen.
“I didn’t really have too much resistance in the lefthand category and won that class quite handily, but righthanded I had some battles and my right arm afterwards was just pumped up and I felt some inflammation in my elbow joint.”
MacPhail has been competing in the sport for the past 20 years and isn’t planning on quitting anytime soon.
“I won a bronze medal at the worlds in 2008 in the Open class and I kind of thought that was my pinnacle, but it seems that with strength sports it’s almost like a fine wine — you get better as you get older.
“As long as I stay injury-free, I’m going to continue to compete.” The world arm wrestling championship is coming up in Bulgaria in September, but MacPhail isn’t planning to go.
But with the 2017 championship set for Budapest, Hungary, in September 2017, MacPhail thinks it might make for a nice family vacation for himself, his wife and their three young children.
MacPhail was the only Cape Bretoner on the Nova Scotia team that competed in Saskatoon. About 300 competitors took part in the national championships.