Four Ways to Predict the World's Strongest Man 2022 Final

 On the eve of WSM 2022, there's been a lot of speculation about placings. Strongman is a super unpredictable sport, which is part of why it's so entertaining, but I decided to compile four quick lists which might predict how everyone places. I don't expect any of these to be any more accurate than a quick prediction thrown together by a fan, but it was interesting seeing how athletes compared by different metrics, and whether any of the lists happen to be close to the actual results! 

My predictions 

The most obvious way to predict performance is to look at how different athletes have performed in the same or similar events to those in the final. Still, there are loads of factors that can influence performance and many athletes haven't tried various events recently (or at all). I basically did a 'traditional' prediction for this - using information from Strongman Archives, but also going off things like training footage and physical attributes. Going through all the events takes longer than the other methods, so I've put my event-by-event predictions in a separate page here. This is very subjective, so you can consider this my own personal prediction, which I'll contrast with a few more objective methods. The final standings I reached based on going through the events were: 

1. Martins Licis (53.5 points) 
2. Tom Stoltman (50 points) 
3. Oleksii Novikov (45 points) 
4. Mitchell Hooper (41 points)
5. Brian Shaw (32.5 points) 
6. Luke Stoltman (32 points)
7. Maxime Boudreault (28 points)
8. Trey Mitchell (28 points)
9. Gabriel Rheaume (10 points)
10. Eythor Ingolfsson Melsted (10 points)

I could be way off. This prediction seems broadly in line with what many others are thinking, though with a few places swapped around. I feel like the points at the top might not be so spread out (and hope that they aren't, so we see more exciting battles!). Also, instead of breaking ties on points with a particular event, I decided to just use my gut feeling of who might perform better. 

Head-to-head

Every contest is different but maybe looking at how athletes have performed against each other gives us some indication about how this contest will go. The way I did this was to use Strongman Archives' head-to-head comparison feature, comparing each athlete against the other. I then tallied how many victories/losses each competitor had against every other athlete in the field to give a total win/loss record. Placings were determined by subtracting their number of losses from their number of wins to give a net score. 

Apart from the fact that contests are highly event-dependent, this might not be the best measure as not everyone has competed against each other and some people have made big improvements since last competing against each other. Guys who've made plenty of improvements (like Tom) probably suffer in this ranking and guys who are arguably past their prime (Brian) may benefit, the measure also doesn't work for athletes who haven't competed against the rest of the line-up much (Hooper and Rheaume). Anyway, here's the ranking:

1. Martins Licis: 24 points (30-6 record)
2. Oleksii Novikov: 19 points (30-11 record) 
3. Brian Shaw: 17 points (32-15 record)
4. Tom Stoltman: 9 points (29-20 record)
5. Mitchell Hooper: 1 point (1-0 record)
6. Maxime Boudreault: -5 points (15-20 record)
7. Luke Stoltman: -6 points (22-28 record)
8. Gabriel Rheaume: -7 points (1-8 record)
9. Trey Mitchell: -10 points (11-21 record)
10. Eythor Ingolfsson Melsted: -12 points (0-12 record) 

While this isn't necessarily the best way to predict an event, it was kind of interesting seeing how they've all fared head-to-head. Half the guys have positive records and half have negative records, which makes sense. Interestingly, Brian is the only person in this line-up to have beaten Martins, and he hasn't done so the last four times they've competed against each other. The top five guys are broadly the same as many are predicting for a top five in this competition, but in a different order. I was probably most surprised with Trey's record here - doesn't seem to reflect how good he is at strongman. 

Feeling the heat

You're only as good as your last competition, so why not look at how everyone did in the heats? This isn't always useful as people often just do what they need to win against their specific group. This even applies to earlier events - times in the loading race were really close, and results may have been different if the top athletes were competing against each other. Also, obviously, events are different in the final. 

I only included the first four events as a few guys didn't really attempt the wrecking ball hold, this might actually be a bit more representative of final performance anyway as grip won't be tested. I just ranked their performances as if it were a ten man show and scored it like strongman contests are usually scored, which left me with: 

1. Oleksii Novikov (34 points)
2. Mitchell Hooper (29.5 points)
3. Martins Licis (29 points)
4. Tom Stoltman (26.5 points)
5. Luke Stoltman (26.5 points)
6. Trey Mitchell (20 points) 
7. Maxime Boudreault (17.5 points)
8. Brian Shaw (14.5 points)
9. Gabriel Rheaume (13 points)
10. Eythor Ingolfsson Melsted (9.5 points)

Here, again the top and bottom half of the competition are broadly similar to what many are predicting, but possibly in the wrong order. I think most would be very surprised if Tom finished as low as fourth or fifth. These events were also probably better for Novikov than the ones in the final (not that he has many weakpoints). Shaw doesn't do too well here - and while his performance in the heats may be indicative of a lower placing in the final, the events there do suit him a bit better. 

Wisdom of the crowd

Asking people what they think might actually be more effective than trawling through numbers or scrutinising events. I asked people over on the strongman subreddit to give their rankings for the finals in a survey, and averaged those out which left me with this list: 

1. Tom Stoltman
2. Martins Licis 
3. Oleksii Novikov
4. Mitchell Hooper
5. Luke Stoltman
6. Brian Shaw
7. Maxime Boudreault 
8. Trey Mitchell
9. Gabriel Rheaume
10. Eythor Ingolfsson Melsted 

Not too many surprises here - this pretty lines up with most of the speculation you see online, but will be interesting to see how it compares to the actual results.

Were any of these lists accurate?

After results come in, I'll see if any of these lists were accurate. For bragging rights, I'd love for my personal list to be closest, but I have a feeling it might be the fourth list...