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BBC News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Mural of Peterborough strongman legend Walter Cornelius unveiled
A mural celebrating a "well-loved" strongman, lifeguard and entertainer has been completed in the city that became his Cornelius, who fled his native Latvia in the 1940s and settled in Peterborough, was known for stunts such as pushing a pea with his nose for a mile (1.6km) and attempting to fly across the River artwork was painted by local artist Nathan Murdoch on the back of the former TK Maxx and Woolworths building on Wentworth said when he found out about Mr Cornelius' story, he wondered: "Why is there not more about him in the city?" Mr Murchoch added he had received a great response on social media from people who knew the strongman, who died aged 60 in 1983. "The tales coming are really interesting and he was a very well-known and well-loved person of the city," he said. Mr Cornelius became a favourite with TV viewers after he first appeared on BBC children's programme Blue Peter in 1967, performing a stunt in which presenters Christopher Trace and John Noakes battered his body with returned to the show several times, but his summer day job was as a lifeguard at the lido in Peterborough, where he taught generations of children to swim. Mr Cornelius made the city his home after rowing 400 miles across the Baltic with a Russian bullet wound in his stomach, according to his friend Chris feats included breaking more than 50 World Records and walking on his hands for 153 miles (246km), said Mr Allen. He became known as the "birdman of Peterborough" after an unsuccessful attempt to fly across the Nene for charity on a pair of homemade wings. Yet, the only acknowledgement of Mr Cornelius's story and achievements in the city was a "birdman" silhouette weathervane at the Lido. So Peterborough Positive, the city's Business Improvement District (BID), decided to commission the mural. Pep Cipriano, its chief operating officer, said: "Walter was a colourful, eccentric character and lots of people have great memories of when he was fulfilling all these feats, including going on Blue Peter."He became a Peterborough celebrity and needed to be honoured - but he was also a lifeguard at the Lido and with its 90th anniversary next year; it's a nod to one of its most famous employees."He hopes the publicity will see more people coming forward to share their stories of Mr Cornelius, whose life he described as "a Hollywood film waiting to happen". Follow Peterborough news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Daily Mail
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Chip off the old block! Eddie Hall's 13-year-old son destined to emulate his bodybuilding father as youngster shows off incredible gym routine - and he can already lift Tyson Fury's weight!
The majority of 13-year-olds are focused on evading homework, guzzling sweets from the tuck shop, and doomscrolling on social media for as long as their brains can take. It's a time in your life when you have absolutely no responsibility; pure bliss. Well, that's unless you are the son of the former world's strongest man. Instead of getting gripped by the endless one-minute videos on TikTok, the eldest of Eddie Hall's children spends his time in the gym as he looks to emulate his father's success. Eight years ago, the Briton was the biggest and brawniest on the planet and could deadlift the equivalent of a large adult horse. That's 500kg, just in case you weren't sure. It was a world record at the time, one that seemed unbreakable to most. However, it has since been topped by Hall's good rival Hafthor Julius Bjornsson, who lifted 501kg back in 2020. The 2017 strongman champ never got the chance to wrestle the record back, seeing as he retired from competition after his monumental triumph. However, it seems the baton has already been passed to his teenage son Maximus, who can already deadlift more than the majority of adults. View this post on Instagram A post shared by 𝐄𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭™️ (@eddiehallwsm) One day before Max's 13th birthday, Hall shared a video of deadlifting a massive personal best. The youngster impressively hauled up a mammoth 150kg, which Hall has called an 'unofficial world record' for a 12-year-old. That is 23kg more than heavyweight icon Tyson Fury weighed before his second fight with Oleksandr Usyk. It's quite a breathtaking weight for someone of Max's age to be lifting, it's already 30 per cent of the 500kg that his father managed to haul up back in 2016. Under the video on Instagram, Hall wrote: 'I'm so proud of max, he's been lifting weights for nearly three years now and he has become what I believe to be a prime example of what a human being should be… hard working, consistent, kind, funny, caring, well mannered, polite, and above all STRONG!!!' The craziest thing about it all? Max didn't even know what he was lifting; the weights were covered with bin bags because he wasn't feeling his strongest on the day. He told his father to 'stick whatever you want on and I'll pull it'. And that's what he did, before discovering just how much he pulled up to his hips when Hall ripped the bin bags off. Maximus can also lift 30kg dumbells on each arm in chesspress, which is a weight only many men and women can dream of shifting into the air. It's clear that the 13-year-old is following in his father's footsteps when it comes to lifting heavy weights, but when you compare the pair of them at that age, it's actually rather hard to see the resemblance. Eddie Hall previously held the world record for a deadlift of 500kg and won World's Strongest Man back in 2017 before retiring to become a bodybuilder Last month, Hall shared a picture of himself at the same age his son Maximus has just turned. It's fair to say, fans were left rather stunned by the picture. The image shows the young strongman, who now plies his trade as both a bodybuilder and a boxer, standing shirtless near a beach wearing nothing but shorts, trainers, and a ring piercing on his left nipple. Hall was a national-level swimmer at the time, cut a muscular but trimmer figure to the powerfully sculpted 'Beast' we know these days. However, he still looks more like a 25-year-old ready to take on Hyrox, than a teenager just a couple of years into secondary school. Last year, he shared a photo of himself, apparently at 16, looking like a fully-fledged movie villain, packing muscles most men could only dream of. Bane from Batman's The Dark Knight Rises incarnated. His son Max doesn't appear to have taken up one of his father's more recent hobbies, though. We are yet to see him don a pair of MMA gloves, but maybe he will save that for after he has broken the deadlift world record in a decade. Last year, the 37-year-old ventured into the realm of mixed martial arts in a rather bizarre fashion when he participated in a unique two-on-one fight in the World Freak Fight League. Hall took on TikTok superstars Jamil and Jamel Neffati – also known as The Neffati Brothers - and massively outweighed his two opponents. Both were comfortably half the size of the strongman. The Polish duo came into the fight at 20.7 stone combined, against Hall's massive 26.2 stone advantage. Can you guess what happened? I imagine so. His superior strength and weight advantage obviously pulled through, as Hall won the fight with a brutal knockout of his opponents in the chaotic third round. 'Yeah, the 2v1 came around, very weirdly,' Hall told Mail Sport. 'I was just training for a big fight that got canceled, and then there was a 2v1 fight landing on my lap. 'And I thought, you know what? Sod it. Let's go for a bit of a risk. But because of the size difference, I took it on. So it went very well.' Maximus, I'm sure, will always feel protected, too. A video recently circulated of his father, Eddie, chasing down a moving car after becoming involved in a furious row with motorists who allegedly created a disturbance outside his Staffordshire home. Hall can be seen swearing at the driver of a blue BMW and threatening, 'I'll twist your f***ing head off' as the car pulls away following the altercation. The footage depicts the final moments of a dispute that began off camera before escalating, with Hall claiming his children had earlier been upset by the honking of car horns outside his property. 'This video has been going viral across the internet painting me as a bad guy who smashes cars up, threatens people and upsets kids,' Hall posted on X. 'Well the truth is now Live on my YouTube channel so please look at both sides of the story before judging! '3 blacked out cars circled my kids home last night at 9pm revving engines, beeping horns, looking into the property and wouldn't leave when asked to do so... things escalated and here you're seeing the last 30 seconds of a total of an 18 minute harassment of my kids peaceful place of sanctuary.' At the backend of the video, as the two cars pulled away, Hall gave chase and a young child was heard crying in the back seat of the second car. 'Hey, get out, get out you f**ing p***k,' Hall is heard screaming. 'I'll f***ing rip your head, I'll twist your f***ng head off. All of you get out, I'll rip your f***ing head off.' He continued on his YouTube channel: 'I am just telling him to leave. I don't want to hear anything he has to say. You have been asked to leave politely, been asked to leave with a bit of a grunt, just f*** off. He added: 'The last bit of the interaction looks really bad. But when you get the context you will understand. I am telling this guy to f*** off, you are scaring my kids. He then says something like he wants a picture with his kids, I said I don't care. You want me to respect your children's emotions, what about my kids' emotions? 'He then starts creeping away, and he looks at me and says "I'm going to knock you the f*** out". Of course, after an 18-minute interaction, you see red. I am protecting my kids, so I blow up. 'I could see the guy was filming me so I ran towards the car to grab his phone and throw it in a bush or something. I might have clipped the side of the door with my hand. I didn't manage to get a hold of the guy at all - unfortunately.'
BBC News
17-06-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Weymouth dad goes from ruptured bicep to World's Strongest Man
"I'm proud of myself but the work's not done", says Shane Flowers who has recovered from injury to become one of the world's strongest father from Weymouth ruptured his bicep and needed to have the muscle surgically 13 months on, he said he "couldn't believe it" after he came 7th in the 2025 World's Strongest Man competition, held in the US last 31-year-old told the BBC he had been inspired to be a "role model" to his new son. Twenty-five of the world's top athletes gathered in Sacramento, California, for the annual showcase of strength which first took place in 6ft 5in, 24-stone giant from Dorset admitted it was "a huge mental game", taking more than just his physical strength to succeed."When it's going on, there's this atmosphere, it's like a do or die type thing, it's pretty intense," Flowers said."At times I thought I was being over ambitious." He suffered food poisoning during the contest but managed to make his way to the final, performing well in events like sandbag throwing, the Hercules hold and the Atlas his top 10 finish, he said, with a smile on his face, "the competitor in me thinks I could have been 5th".But he admitted he was "buzzing" with his success and said: "To be a competitor at that stage already puts you in the upper echelons of the sport."Flowers added becoming a father for the first time also gave him "a different perspective"."I don't care if my son Ronny wants to become a strongman when he's older, I just want him to witness his old man really work hard towards what he's passionate about, and then he witnesses that and use that blueprint in his own journey," he African Rayno Nel became the first African to win the historic contest, narrowly beating last year's winner Scotland's Luke Stoltman by 0.5 points. You can follow BBC Dorset on Facebook, X, or Instagram.
Washington Post
01-06-2025
- General
- Washington Post
How kind can a leader be? Jacinda Ardern makes the case for compassion.
Against the backdrop of the braggadocio and threats that permeate today's political discourse, former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern uses her new memoir to make a clear and compelling case for compassion. 'A Different Kind of Power' is the story of an accidental leader, a woman who overcame persistent self-doubt to become her country's 40th prime minister, committed herself above all to caring for her fellow citizens, and then chose to quit when she felt her resilience wane. While Ardern rejects the 'anti-Trump' label, her new book is an implicit repudiation of the strongman style of leadership that has taken hold around the world.
The Sun
19-05-2025
- Sport
- The Sun
Tom Stoltman misses out on World's Strongest Man title by just 0.48 seconds with own BROTHER wrecking dream
TOM STOLTMAN's dreams of winning a fourth World's Strongest Man trophy were agonisingly dashed by his BROTHER. The 30-year-old Scot missed out on the trophy by a HALF A POINT, with South Africa's Rayno Nel taking home the win in Sacramento, California. 4 4 4 Stoltman put in a Herculean effort to reduce the final day deficit between himself and Nel. But ironically, it was the Hercules hold that cost him the competition. Tom received three points for holding the mammoth 160kg pillars for 31.82 seconds. Stoltman's older brother, Luke, performed better in the gruelling task, receiving the four points for a 32:30-second hold. So that meant Tom's dreams of a fourth title were inadvertently dashed by his older sibling, who held the pillars 0.48 seconds longer than he did. Tom ended the final day with a points tally of 46.5. Competition winner Nel, who won the tournament in his DEBUT, finished with 47 points. Luke, meanwhile, finished with 21.5 points to his name. JOIN SUN VEGAS: GET £50 BONUS 4 Tom's heartache was somewhat soothed by the fact he moved a step closer to making yet more strongman history. His second-placed finish was his sixth podium appearance in the competition. It saw him move level with Brit icon Geoff Capes and Icelandic giant Magnus Ver Magnusson. Tom won the World's Strongest Man in 2021, 2022 and 2024. He regained the title last year from 2023 tournament winner Mitchell Hooper. Five-time finalist Luke, who was competing in the tournament for the tenth time in his career, finished in ninth place.
