‘My autism is a super-power – I defied tragedy to become World’s Strongest Man’
Tom Stoltman, the World’s Strongest Man since 2021, has deadlifted the weight of a caravan – it still does not come close to his greatest feat of strength.
When the World’s Strongest Man competition bowls into town, you will hear his 6ft 8in, 29 stone frame stroll into the area. He makes Goliath look like David. When you are flanked by Stoltman and his older brother Luke, a five-time winner of Scotland’s Strongest Man and 2021 winner of the European competition, it’s easy to feel insignificant.
When I met the titanic duo in London, I was approximately 79kgs. In 2021, Tom lifted a 286kg Atlas Stone and dumped it over a high bar. Asking tough questions is daunting when the interviewees could pick you up and put you on a high shelf like you were an old tin of paint. Fortunately, the Stoltman brothers are not afraid of hard questions. Their strength, afterall, has come from even harder experiences, not from deadlifts, atlas stones, log presses, or any gym machine in the world.
Read More: World’s strongest brothers eat 13,000 calories daily – including 10 eggs at breakfast
Tom, who hails from Invergordon, Scotland, was diagnosed with autism at the age of five-years-old. As is the case with individuals who live with autism growing up within an education system which is still learning how to best support those pupils was not easy. But there was a flicker when Tom watched Luke compete at the Scottish Strongest Man at the age of 16-years-old.
“Luke inspired me to do that,” Tom said exclusively to Daily Star Sport on behalf of PRIMAL, while looking at Luke with a wry smile. “I was inspired to start when I was 16 and then I competed at 18. I wasn’t even thinking about Strongman I just wanted to go to the gym.
“I’ve had autism from a young age and I always wanted to do something I thought I was good at. With Strongman, going to the gym is easy. It’s repetition, it’s the same thing every day, you’re eating the same thing every single day, and I was in a routine every single day.
“It was really good for my mind. It didn’t really over-stimulate my mind. I followed that every single day, I didn’t want to work anymore, I just wanted to go to the gym, that’s all I wanted to do.
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“When I was 16 or 17-years-old I found a gym and then at the age of 18 or 19-years-old, I decided I’m not doing anything else in the world except from going to the gym. I learned loads of things in the gym. I learned how to do maths in the gym, I learned how to talk to people in the gym, I learned how to problem solve in the gym, I just learned a lot of things at the gym that I didn’t learn at school. Having autism helped me to really blossom at the gym.”
Tom blossomed like a flower but grew and compacted like the sturdiest and widest of oak trees. He has aspirations of breaking the deadlift world record which currently stands at 501KGs. Once he lifts that achievement and casts it aside, he will lift the next one out the way, then the one after that, until he has become the strongest person to have ever walked the earth. However, Stoltman was close to giving up Strongman just as his potential was beginning to show.
In 2016, their mother Sheila passed away at the age of 56-years-old after dying of cancer. “We’re strong as a family. That was the hardest thing in our family’s life. My Mum was the only person I went to talk about my difficulties and talk about things and stuff.
“We were there every single day. She went from being able to do stuff to being bed bound and just getting worse and worse. To see that and to see her go within a month it was really, really hard for me. I kind of just closed off and didn’t accept she was gone. I didn’t want to do strongman anymore, I didn’t want to do anything in my life, because my Mum did not get to see me lift any trophies in strongman. I just thought, ‘what’s the point?’
“The only reason I wanted to do it was to make her proud. It was really hard for myself. But, once I went away and started saying to myself ‘Mum wanted me to be really happy with myself and wanted to do something that I loved’. I had a wife that I loved and a house and the thing I loved doing was strongman so I wanted to get back into that as quickly as I could.
“Me and Luke put ourselves through pain out of choice, every single day, but she was in pain every day without that choice. To see that, was proper pain. Whatever we do is easy compared to what she went though.
“We talk about her and we talk about the happy times. My World’s strongest man trophies are beside her at my Dad’s house. She’s a big inspiration to us.” Throughout his life, Luke has always been at his side. As any older brother would be, he is, still, protective and considerate of his brother. “It’s amazing to see the kind of man Tom has become,” Luke added.
“It was a testing time for Tom as a child growing up with it. When it came to going over to a friend’s house, using public transport, going to schools, it was very challenging. Now, to see Tom, this majestic giant giving all these kids a shining light. That’s what Tom is to kids with autism. It’s humbling and I am very proud.”
Tom is using his hefty platform to flip the perception of living with autism. He sees it not as a hinderance, but a superpower. He devotes his time to working with children and adults alike who went through the same conundrums he had to navigate around. “Obviously, I’ve been labelled a lot in life. A lot of things went past me,” he added. “People have said things about me and used me as a label. But, now I’m trying to rejig the stigma, in that sense, and say it’s a super power. I’ve said it’s a super power for the last few years.
“You know it’s really helped kids and it’s really helped adults blossom and it’s helped them talk about it and come out. There’s only a percentage of people who have this super power in this world and they share it with the world’s strongest man.
“It helps people get motivated. I get messages every day saying I’ve changed their lives, or I’ve helped them smile, helped them get out of bed, or get a job, just by saying it’s a superpower. If I can motivate people to do great in their life, I’m doing great.
“Being the world’s strongest man is just a bonus. I am trying to use my platform to be the best ambassador I can be for autism because I live with it every day. I know it inside out and I know how people feel about it. To this day, I still struggle with it.”
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