Strongman competitions have been around for decades, but it’s only recently started to include women and the sport is growing. While there has been amateur competitions in Regina, this year will mark the first year official strongwoman competition in Canada.
Tracey Halladay will be one of the five from Regina traveling to Plantagenet, Ont. to compete Sep. 15 and 16.
“If you win this event, you are the strongest woman in Canada,” Halladay said.
For Halladay it means even more because the event is held the same time as Canada’s Strongest Man Competition.
“We are doing the exact same events as the men, just different weights,” Halladay said. “I think it totally destroys all the gender stereotypes that there is about women out there.”
READ MORE: The 2016 CAASA Strongman/Strongwoman Nationals
She has been training since 2012. To help her get a taste of competition her husband and trainer Steven Halladay actually put on a Canadian Strongwoman Competition.
“We had one (athlete) come up from Alberta, and Quebec. Back then the sport was really in its infancy, so more of the athletes weren’t that good, and representation wasn’t from everywhere,” he said.
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“I think now with it being under the banner of the strongman circuit here in Canada and the athletes being as advanced as they are now… It’s going to be really exciting.”
This won’t be the first big competition for Tracey Halladay. In 2017, she was third for Strongest Woman in North America, and got eighth place at the world’s strongest woman competition.
READ MORE: Calgary’s Allison Lockhart shows what made her Canada’s strongest woman
She has been training since 2012, and she can do it all. Halladay can pull huge trucks, flip 600 pound tires and throw kegs over her head.
Video courtesy: Tracey Halladay
“I just felt like I fell in love with it right away,” she said. “Without strongman, I just don’t know who I’d be right now.”
Halladay hopes the new Canadian competition will not just be an opportunity for her, but also a way to defeat gender stereotypes, especially when it comes to women lifting insanely heavy weights.
“It doesn’t mean you’re manly or masculine, and you can still have weight but it doesn’t have to be what people think 200 pounds might look like,” she said.
“We can be dedicated, we can break the rules, we can do all that kind of stuff and we don’t have to lose our femininity because of it.”
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