World’s best, hands down
Ottawans who’d like to see how good they are at arm wrestling can take on the world champion, as TONY LOFARO explains.
In a garage of a Richmond home, there’s a lot of armtwisting going on — the sweaty, physical kind. It is here that about 12 men and women gather weekly to test their strength and practise on cocktail-high tables set up in rows. They are members of the Ottawa High Hookers, a group of arm-wrestling enthusiasts that includes a world champ.
These practice sessions are fun and all about gaining strength in the hands, but there is a method to the weekly tug of war madness. Arm-wrestling may be considered mostly a barroom pastime in North America, where the loser who has his arm pinned to the table surface must buy the next round.
But in Europe it’s a big-time sport and a weekly TV show broadcast in 66 countries draws an audience of more than 170 million people.
Devon Larratt, ranked No. 1 in the world in right- and left-arm competitions, is a member of the Ottawa High Hookers. Each week, he takes on all challengers at these sessions, some coming from as far away as Ogdensburg, New York. Larratt, tall and built like a brick house, easily takes down other club members eager to go shoulder-to-shoulder against a bona fide world champ.
His wife, Jodi, is no slouch either, and she battles other members, usually coming out on top too. She began competitive arm-wrestling more than a year ago and already she’s won some tournaments and grabbed trophies.
For the Larratts, arm-wrestling is a family affair with kids Milo, 10, Auden, seven, and Habree, four, also involved.
“I’ve always loved the sport of arm-wrestling ever since I was a little kid,” said Devon Larratt, 37, relaxing at the kitchen table of his home in the village of Richmond, south of Kanata.
“I was always drawn to it,” said Larratt, who grew up on a farm in southern Ontario and arm-wrestled with his grandmother.
“She was not a big woman but she was strong,” he said of his battling grandmother. “The rumour around the family was that she was the Alberta women’s champion. Whether it was true or not I don’t know but I’m sure she won some county fairs.”
He started at age five and admits he was just an average arm wrestler. Until he hit high school, that is. That’s when this inner strength kicked in and he began knocking off all comers. “I was a 200-pound farm kid at 19 and pretty strong,” he said.
After high school he worked in the oilfields of Alberta where he met a professional arm-wrestler. That’s when he realized the potential in arm-wrestling, which was then largely on the margins of sporting activities.
“He trained me for a couple of months and he was getting ready for a competition, so he basically used me as a punching bag,” said Larratt, who moved from Alberta to Picton, Ont., before settling in Ottawa.
“As soon as I found out there was an organized part of the sport I just latched on.”
He has competed in arm-wrestling matches at a high level for about 20 years, picking up a number of national, provincial and world titles. He’s been the world right-arm champion for four years and left-arm champ for only six months. The goal is to pin the other’s arm onto the surface, with the winner’s arm over the loser’s arm.
“There’s something in me that just loves to fight, and loves combat. It’s that visceral feeling of competing against someone,” said Larratt. He said arm-wrestling injuries do happen but not as often as in more physical sports.
“When you look at fight sports it normally comes at a heavy price, especially with all the concussions and everything,” said Larratt, who trains daily with weights and practises with other players.
Jodi Larratt met Devon in high school in Picton about 21 years ago. She said her husband has always pushed himself to excel and has taken part in extreme activities; he once performed 1,500 consecutive pushups in a competition.
“Devon has incredible determination and drive when it comes to anything he really wants to do. He’s the most extreme person I know. For a year or longer he decided he wasn’t going to use stairs. So he’d scale a building if he needed to get into the second floor, or he’d jump out of a building,” said Jodi. He competed in an Ironman competition in 2000 and won.
She said her husband was a big influence on her getting involved in arm-wrestling and now she competes in several tournaments every year.
“It’s a pretty charged rush battling one-on-one with someone,” said Jodi. “I like the training element and being out here with the guys.”
She said she’s a “few years” away from competing at a high level like other professional arm wrestlers, but it’s something she wants to pursue. She said her kids took up arm-wrestling only because they are surrounded by it in the home and sometimes come along to nearby tournaments.
“It’s not us pushing them to do it, they are constantly at the table saying, ‘Mommy let’s go and do it,’” said Jodi, adding her children also play soccer and are involved in judo.
Devon is gearing up to defend his world title next month in Moscow and he’s working on bringing more awareness to the sport.