CHARD’s famous strongman founder is set to take on an international competition with a pandemic twist.

Gary Clarke was the UK’s first ever disabled strongman, and the founder of Britain’s Disabled Strongman Competition.

In 2018 and 2019, Gary brought the national contest to Chard and sold out the Guildhall both times.

For 2020 he had planned to stage the event at Holyrood Academy, and hoped to draw even more people to Britain’s Disabled Strongman.

But, like most events this year, Gary was forced to cancel the competition.

However, before the year ends, he is set to take part in the World’s Strongest Disabled Man thanks to technology.

Gary said: “The event is taking place in multiple locations around the world. The UK guys are doing it in Nailsea on December 27.”

Events will be filmed for a live feed and watched by judges Magnus ver Magnusson and Arnar Mar Johnson, who are both based in Iceland.

“They are going to collect the videos and decide who is going to be Disabled Strongman 2020.

“It has been very surreal this year with nothing going on, but hopefully we can do this at the end of the year and it will be something good to go into 2021.

Gary, who has cerebral palsy, set up his own ‘shed of strength’ so he has been able to train at home. He has even set up chain hoist to get stone weights in position himself.

As well as preparing for his strongman contests, being able to work out at home meant that Gary was able to complete an epic charity challenge earlier this year.

Over the course of five days, the strongman set out to complete 250 Atlas stone reps.

Normally Gary would do 25 in a week, but raising money for Musgrove Park Hospital saw him hit 300.

Over the five days he lifted 18 tonnes - equivalent to a double decker bus.

The challenge also saw him raise £1,070 for the hospital in Taunton.