Staying strong

Local strongman Dallas Hogan is back.

The 32-year-old father of two girls was bedridden after he injured his back about a year ago. Since then he’s been training from the ground up. Although his injury required him to stay out of the Ontario strongman competition, he said he never thought of giving up.

“My main concern was making sure I came back and to be able to walk,” he said. “Two months before Halloween, I told my physiotherapist that I wanted to take my little one trick-or-treating. I’m just trying to keep a positive mindset. I’m not a quitter that’s for sure.”

His hard work paid off as he made his debut return at the third annual Strongest Man competition on Saturday at the Paulucci's Wayland bar and grill. Hogan stayed in the 200-pound and up category taking other heavyweights like Kyle Rayner and Luke Skaarup.

Since he injured his back, Hogan said that he’s making sure that he’s doing his lifting properly and using his core muscles – something that he admits he used to be a bit sloppy with.

Hogan plans to head to Russian for the world’s strongman competition in October.

He said that he was glad to see so many competitors this year because when he started back in 2006 he was the only one out.
The competition was broke up into two categories: five participants were in the under 200-pound category and seven competed in the over 200 category.

Jake Dipaolo decided to test his limits by competition for the first time in the heavyweight category.

He said the lightweight category was getting too easy.

“After this it will still be a long time coming still but I want to eventually be like Luke and Rayner,” the 22-year-old said. “That’s my goal.”

Proceeds raised at the event went towards Camp Quality.

Even organizer Kateri Skaarup said they hope to raise $5,000 for Camp Quality. It’s the first year that the event has raised money for the charity.

Skaarup said that they thought it was a worthy cause to support.

“The children haven’t done anything wrong yet, they’re totally innocent so when they’re affected by an illness like cancer, it’s hard for them to think of anything else,” she said. “For them to get away for that week where their parents get a little bit of a break and they get a break from dealing with the illness, I think that’s an extremely important cause.”

The event wraps up around 7 p.m.