The Sandbag Sprint was widely described as the most painful of the eight events. This photo and video are from the final men's heat, the top five men after the 7k run and Deadlift events. The time to beat was Iceland Sven's blazing time of 1:01.

The race was epic. The guys had to run about 30' from the starting line to the sandbags, which were laying down side by side on the ground. They had to grab both bags (each weighing 35lbs) and start the sprint up the hill. Any technique was permitted for grabbing and carrying the bags.

The race was 170m uphill. There was about 100' elevation gain between the starting and finishing lines, with most of that coming in the final 40m. Just about that time that your legs were starting to fatigue, the hill got dramatically steeper.

JC Nessa took off to an early lead. Jeremy Thiel was in second by a large margin. Mikko Salo, David Millar and Peter Egyed were together in the back. It looked like JC's race right up until the final pitch.

But he slowed dramatically. Jeremy started to gain, and Mikko held his own. But Jeremy slowed a bit also. Mikko was able to keep pace better than any one. Then JC stumbled, and Mikko darted around him for the lead. He kept pushing, and won the heat handily. His time of 1:08.6 was good enough for 9th in the event, which put him into 1st place overall after three events.

Mikko Salo Sandbag Sprint video ... [wmv] [mov]