Doing “dips” in the gym is not easy when you are the world’s strongest man.
But for Magnus Samuelsson, it looked easy.
Börje Salming and Ingemar Stenmark could only gape at the muscle knot’s enormous display.
Superstars has continued in recent years as well, but it’s hard to beat how incredibly legendary it was in the show’s early days. The program was broadcast on SVT for the first time in the mid-70s, and was won for the first time by the pole vaulter Kjell Isaksson.
Magnus Samuelsson’s presentation
Kjell Isaksson also won the European edition of the competition two years in a row, but in Sweden there was a long break until 1996 when the program instead came to TV3. Since then, it has aired on both TV3 and Kanal 5, and in the first season on the latter channel, the program was star-studded, to say the least, as they bet on incredibly well-known names.
The 2009 edition consisted of a total of 16 participants divided into four different teams. Each team had a team captain, in the form of Magdalena Forsberg, Tomas Ravelli, Börje Salming and Ingemar Stenmark. Among the other participants were icons such as Ara Abrahamian, Patrik “Bjärred” Andersson, Mathias Fredriksson, Pelle Fosshaug, Magnus Wislander – and then Magnus Samuelsson. The muscle knot had won the “World’s Strongest Man” award just over ten years earlier, and if the beats were in, even in Superstars? You have to say that anyway.
READ MORE: The tragic reason why Magnus Samuelsson ended his career – here are the honest words of the powerhouse
Salming and Stenmark in shock
Magnus Samuelsson was given the task of doing the classic exercise “dips”, in a fight against, among others, Ara Abrahamian. Dips are when you lift your own body weight as many times as possible. The exercise is generally suitable for fit people who may not weigh much. Namely, Samuelsson had just over 150(!) kilos to lift as many times as possible in one minute – an impossible task in advance against, for example, Abrahamian, who didn’t weigh nearly as much, but who still had a lot of muscle.
Team captain Börje Salming looks skeptical at first, but that changes quickly once Samuelsson gets going. Lifting your body weight is not easy when you weigh as much as Samuelsson does, and his magical effort means that Ingemar Stenmark and Ara Abrahamian, who are watching, can only tan. Afterwards, Börje Salming is also very impressed with the effort, and we can only agree. What an incredible show by a true icon!
READ MORE: The unique video shows Magnus Samuelsson’s raw strength – lifts a stone of 130 kilos (!) as if it were an Ica bag