Denis Poulin-Lacasse has been living in Denmark, in the middle of the Viking land, for almost four years and he is starting to get noticed there as a strong man.
• Read also: Marcel Perron is weightlifting champion at 90
The story of the 34-year-old Quebecer is almost taken from a movie. See for yourselves.
“I met a Dane in the summer of 2018 in Thailand. It clicked, we saw each other occasionally, about every five weeks. I started looking for a job there and moved in October 2019”, he explains during a videoconference.
The couple, who are based in the Copenhagen area, are expecting their first child who will arrive a few weeks before Christmas. Denis, who is an actuary, found a job.
good athlete
But back to strongman competitions, a discipline popularized here by a certain Hugo Girard.
“Yes, it’s the same sport as Hugo Girard, but I don’t have the same physique,” he laughs. In my case, I compete in the under 90 kilos.
A good sportsman, Denis has already won the silver medal at the World Junior Taekwondo Championship. He also played school football in Charlesbourg. He knew about strongman competitions without having done any.
“I started it here. At the gym where I train, there was equipment for that and they organized competitions. The coach told me I should try and I got hooked. It allows me to continue training with a goal.”
Denis Poulin-Lacasse has the opportunity to compete in magnificent landscapes. Courtesy Denis Poulin-Lacasse
Integration
Practicing this new sport allowed Denis Poulin-Lacasse to better integrate into his new environment while he also learned Danish, a language that presents its challenges.
“It really helped me to integrate because it is sure that it is difficult to meet people at the beginning. I arrived and six months later it was COVID.”
Arriving in a country that finds itself in isolation in the months that follow does not help integration, indeed. But our man presumably loves action and he decided to do his part.
“For two or three years, I have also been involved in the federation which organizes the competitions.”
To attack!
Denis is strong, but not excessively. But he went for it and started to compete in this sport which is popular, but altogether marginal in Scandinavia.
“I did my first competition a few weeks after I started training. I came in fourth out of six. In June 2021, I made the national championship and also came fourth.
“From this competition, the performances started to improve. In June 2022, I came second nationally and again this year. An injury may have prevented me from arriving first.
Denis specifies that it is a niche sport and that he and his comrades are trying to democratize it so that there are more participants.
Exceeding
The interesting thing about these competitions is that the events vary from time to time.
“You have to be good at everything because the events change with each competition and you know them a few weeks before.”
Poulin-Lacasse devotes 1.5 to 2 hours to training four times a week, specifying that one should not exaggerate to avoid injuries associated with lifting loads.
“What I like the most is surpassing oneself. You compete against your opponents, but especially against yourself to beat your personal records and what you do in training.
“There’s a lot of camaraderie between the athletes, I haven’t seen a lot in other sports. There is a lot of support.”
For him, it is above all a hobby that takes up a lot of space in his life. It may be a hobby, but it allows him to travel since he has already been to Sweden and Norway and will soon be traveling to Spain for a competition.
