Oskar Ziółkowski

Oskar Ziółkowski, from a small garage in Wielki Komorsk to the world stage. Oskar Ziółkowski is one of the Polish strongmen who made the fastest transition from national competition to elite international level in the first half of the 2020s. Born on 28 September 1995 and rooted in Wielki Komorsk, later also publicly associated with Płochocinek in the Warlubie municipality, he entered competitive strongman relatively late after an adolescence and early adulthood spent in athletics, especially shot put. His debut at Poland’s Strongest Man in 2020 ended immediately with third place despite only a handful of previous amateur strongman contests. Over the next three years the rise was steep: Poland’s Strongest Man champion in 2021, SCL Poland winner in 2022, Official Strongman Games finalist that same year, then Arnold Amateur champion, OSG European champion, SCL Team World Champion alongside Adam Roszkowski and SCL World Finals champion in 2023. In 2024 he reached the professional Arnold Strongman Classic and World’s Strongest Man, while 2025 and 2026 expanded his profile into high-level powerlifting without abandoning strongman. His career cannot be reduced to a single quality. He is statically strong enough for elite deadlift and squat numbers, explosive enough for sandbag throwing, and technically proficient enough in stones, farmer’s walk and medleys to score across very different contests. More importantly, his results identify an athlete capable of remaining near the top across many event types, which helps explain why he has won competitions with very different structures. This biography follows his path through the end of September 2026, using Strongman Archives, Giants Live, World Athletics, Official Strongman Games, OpenPowerlifting, Polish sports media and reporting from his home region as principal reference points.

Identity, spelling and physical data. International sources sometimes render his surname without Polish diacritics as Ziolkowski or Ziólkowski, but the Polish spelling used in this profile is Oskar Ziółkowski. Giants Live lists his date of birth as 28 September 1995, height at roughly 1.91 m and bodyweight around 148 kg in a profile created during his international rise. Strongman Archives uses 1.91 m and approximately 150 kg, while a Swedish event presentation in 2026 listed him at about 192 cm and 158 kg. These differences are not serious contradictions. They are the normal seasonal variation of an Open strongman moving between powerlifting blocks, event preparation and different competition peaks. For the current profile, 191 cm remains the most consistent reference height, while 158 kg reflects a recent public 2026 figure. Ziółkowski competes in the Open or heavyweight division with no upper bodyweight limit. His physique fits the modern heavy strongman template: thick torso, substantial overall mass, limbs long enough to work efficiently in deadlift and carries, yet not so extreme in proportion that every event becomes a compromise. His shot-put background also gave him an athletic base in explosive hip extension, timing and coordination before he ever trained strongman specifically. Those qualities remain visible in sandbag toss, loading and dynamic overhead work. Bodyweight figures should therefore be read as snapshots rather than permanent identity markers. OpenPowerlifting records him above 150 kg in several 2025 and 2026 meets, including over 158 kg, confirming that his competitive mass increased from his earlier international seasons. Crucially, the added size did not turn him into a purely static athlete. Results in truck pull, power stairs, stones and frame carry during 2026 show that he retained meaningful movement ability alongside the larger strength base.

Wielki Komorsk and an early relationship with the weight room. Some of the most useful material on Ziółkowski’s beginnings comes from local reporting in the Świecie and Warlubie area, written before he became internationally known. In a 2020 feature he explained that he had trained in a small gym in Wielki Komorsk from around the age of eleven. That detail changes the simplistic idea that he discovered strength only at twenty-four. He began strongman specifically at roughly that age, but weights had already been part of his life for many years. The local gym was formative precisely because it was unglamorous. It had none of the infrastructure of a modern performance center, yet it was enough to make lifting a routine rather than a novelty. When the gym closed before his national breakthrough season, Ziółkowski moved his equipment into a garage of roughly three by five meters. There he could train barbells and dumbbells, but strongman demands implements that a tiny garage cannot reproduce easily: Atlas Stones, yokes, farmer’s handles, vehicles for pulling and loading platforms. His solution was cooperation with other athletes and Team Strongman Bydgoszcz for specific event training. This period matters because it reveals a pattern that stayed visible throughout his career: the ability to build performance from imperfect resources. He did not enter the sport with a complete equipment base, a staff and sponsors. Training had to be divided between what he could do at home and what he could practice with other strongmen. In a sport where familiarity with an implement can decide many seconds and several points, lack of access is a real disadvantage. Reaching the national podium in 2020 despite that context explains why local media described him as one of the revelations of the championship.

Athletics and shot put before strongman. World Athletics provides a useful archive of Oskar Ziółkowski’s junior throwing years. He appears as a Polish shot put athlete with marks using several implement weights. In 2012 he threw 19.30 m with the 5 kg shot, a mark carrying the database’s technical note about validity conditions; in 2014 he reached 18.57 m indoors with the 6 kg implement at Spała, and with the senior 7.26 kg shot he recorded 16.54 m in May 2015 at Biała Podlaska. Giants Live summarizes this stage by noting that he had thrown beyond nineteen meters as a junior. The figures matter not only as results but as biomechanical background. Shot put develops explosiveness, the ability to accelerate an external mass, posterior-chain coordination and transfer of force from the legs through the trunk into the arms. Strongman demands related transfers in log clean, sandbag toss, keg toss, loading and many dynamic overhead movements. Of course, throwing technique does not automatically produce a successful strongman, and a good thrower is not destined to become one. In Ziółkowski’s case, however, the athletic background provides a coherent explanation for why throwing events were strengths almost immediately. At Poland’s Strongest Man 2020 he won the sandbag toss, at SCL Poland 2022 he won the shot-put event, and throughout 2025 and 2026 he continued to place highly in sandbag throwing. His move from athletics to strongman was therefore not a complete break. It was a change in how the same explosive qualities were applied. Instead of maximizing the distance of one standardized implement, he began accelerating heavier, awkward objects inside multi-event contests where throwing had to coexist with pulling, carrying, pressing and loading.

Choosing strongman at twenty-four. Giants Live records that Ziółkowski began preparing specifically for strongman around the age of twenty-four and quickly felt that he had found the sport he wanted to pursue. The timeline matches Polish local reporting from 2020: roughly a year before his first national championship, after the gym in Wielki Komorsk closed, he moved equipment into his garage and committed more seriously to strength competition. He did not have the advantage of a junior strongman who had already accumulated five or six seasons on the implements. What he did have was a base of strength from years in the gym and technical education from athletics. His earliest starts were modest in status, including amateur contests, but development was rapid. By the 2020 Polish championship, reporters noted that he had competed in only two amateur strongman events. The podium therefore came almost immediately rather than after a long apprenticeship. It is still important not to turn this into a mythology of natural talent that makes training irrelevant. Strongman is deeply technical, and Ziółkowski’s rapid progress says as much about his willingness to learn and his pre-existing strength base as it does about physical gifts. In interviews and local coverage he acknowledged the importance of athletes from Team Strongman Bydgoszcz, without whom preparation on specialized implements would have been much more difficult. That acknowledgement matters in a sport whose public stories often overfocus on the individual. The result on the scoreboard belonged to him, but access to a community, equipment and experienced partners accelerated the transition. Within months, strongman moved from being an experiment to becoming the central competitive project of his adult athletic life.

2020, the first Poland’s Strongest Man and an unexpected bronze medal. The 2020 national championship in Inowrocław was Ziółkowski’s first major public test. Strongman Archives places him third among ten finalists, behind Robert Cyrwus and Marcin Wlizło. Local media treated the result as a surprise because he was still little known nationally. Qualifying had already exposed him to a 420 kg yoke, log repetitions and a truck pull, while the final combined minibus pull, farmer’s walk with loading, sandbag toss, dumbbell, car deadlift and Atlas Stones. Strongman Archives shows a surprisingly balanced profile for a newcomer: fourth on stones, seventh on car deadlift, third on dumbbell press, first on sandbag toss, third in the medley and fourth in the minibus pull. He was not yet dominant in static strength, but could recover points through speed, throwing and general execution. In his post-contest account, Ziółkowski described the 420 kg yoke as one of the hardest experiences of qualifying and discussed six repetitions on the deadlift apparatus, which he estimated as feeling around the 300 kg range. The day after the national championship, he also entered an open contest in Orle near Wejherowo and won. That detail says something about the competition volume he was willing to accept from the beginning. More important than the medal itself, 2020 gave him evidence that he could compete with experienced strongmen rather than merely train around them. He was no longer a former thrower trying strongman occasionally. He had become a name worth following in the Polish national championship, and the speed of that transition set the tone for the next three seasons.

Truck driving and the economics of a sport that was not yet a full-time profession. During his breakthrough period, Ziółkowski did not live exclusively from strongman. Polish local reporting and later Giants Live material noted that he worked as a truck driver, sometimes under conditions that made it difficult to synchronize employment, training and recovery. The 2020 feature described him training three or four times per week depending on available time, with work schedules affecting access to specialized equipment. This stage places him inside a reality shared by many strongmen who appear on international posters before the sport provides them with stable income. Food, travel, equipment, physiotherapy, entry fees and time away from work are expensive, while prize money and sponsorship usually follow results rather than precede them. Giants Live later highlighted that much of his early rise had been achieved while maintaining an ordinary career outside sport. A Swedish event profile in 2026 described him as a personal trainer and noted truck driving as his previous occupation. The move from truck driver to personal trainer can be read as part of the gradual professionalization of his life around strength sport. Yet the old job should not be romanticized as if fatigue itself created performance. Long hours behind the wheel and restricted sleep are obstacles, not training methods. The achievement lies in maintaining progress despite them. This period also explains why community and sponsor support mattered when international travel began. Elite strongman requires more than being strong enough to enter a contest. The athlete must also create the logistical conditions that allow him to reach the competition, recover from it and return to training while the financial side of the career is still being built.

2021 and the transformation from surprise contender to national champion. If 2020 introduced Ziółkowski to the Polish strongman scene, 2021 proved that the podium had not been accidental. Before the national championship he won the Plażowy Puchar Polski Strongman in Dębki, beating experienced names including Sławomir Toczek. For Poland’s Strongest Man in Inowrocław, local reporting stated that he had been prepared very effectively by Mateusz Kieliszkowski, one of the world’s leading strongmen. The exact shape of their relationship should be described carefully because it included documented mentoring, preparation and shared training rather than a simple permanent coach-athlete label. The competitive effect was nevertheless clear. Strongman Archives shows Ziółkowski winning the first five events of the final: deadlift, Hercules Hold, dumbbell press, a medley involving yoke and sandbag work, and excavator pull. He finished second on Atlas Stones. In other words, the title did not come from one favorable event or one rival’s mistake. He controlled almost the entire contest. Polish coverage noted that he had mathematically secured the championship before the final event. The performance changed his status. In only his second serious national strongman season, he had become Poland’s Strongest Man in a country with one of the richest traditions in the sport. The historical context matters because a Polish national title carries particular symbolic weight after generations of elite competitors. For Ziółkowski, 2021 also showed more clearly why versatility would become his competitive identity. He could win static strength, grip, overhead and pulling events on the same day. The athlete who had first attracted attention as a strong thrower was becoming a complete strongman capable of controlling an entire scoreboard.

The Savickas Classic and a first major international podium. Soon after winning the 2021 Polish title, Ziółkowski competed at the Savickas Classic in Panevėžys, Lithuania. Strongman Archives places him third of eight, behind Didzis Zariņš and Pavlo Kordiyaka. For an athlete still early in his international career, the podium showed that national success could travel. Events included stone over bar, deadlift, tire flip, max log lift and tractor pull. Ziółkowski finished third on the stones, third in deadlift, fourth on tire flip, third on log with 170 kg and third on tractor pull. Once again, the pattern matters more than any isolated event. He did not win one, but he remained high enough everywhere to reach the overall podium. Strongman rewards exactly this kind of scoring stability. An athlete can possess the biggest deadlift in the field and still lose a contest by conceding too much in carries, medleys or overhead events. Ziółkowski was beginning to demonstrate the opposite model: perhaps not the absolute best athlete in the world at one movement, but difficult to remove from contention across a full set of events. The 170 kg log also provides a useful marker in the development of his pressing. By 2022 he would lift 187.5 kg at the Polish Log Lift Championships, and in 2024 he would reach 190 kg in competition. At elite level, an additional ten or twenty kilograms on a log is a major technical and physical improvement. The Savickas Classic podium closed his breakthrough year by giving him a direct comparison with strong international athletes. From this point forward, his career could no longer be evaluated only through Polish domestic results.

2022, a back problem and the loss of the national title. The following season began with a significant obstacle. Before Poland’s Strongest Man 2022, Ziółkowski spoke publicly about a back issue that had limited training and prevented a fully complete preparation. He still entered the championship in Białystok and finished second behind Marek Czajkowski and ahead of Adam Roszkowski. The result matters because it reveals another side of development. After a nearly perfect 2021, he had to accept that health and readiness could not be controlled completely. The events were demanding: Atlas Stones up to 200 kg, car deadlift, squat for repetitions, a wheelbarrow-and-sandbag medley, an overhead medley using dumbbells and log, and a carry-and-flip event with a 420 kg yoke and a 300 kg tire. Ziółkowski won the squat with eleven repetitions and finished second in several other events, including the medley and carry-and-flip. In one sense, second place confirmed that the foundation built in 2021 was real. Even without ideal preparation, he remained complete enough to stand on the national podium. It is also notable that he did not publicly use the back problem as an excuse for the result. He described it as a preparation limitation, competed, and accepted the scoreboard. In a sport with a high injury burden, that distinction matters. Strongman frequently forces athletes to decide between competing below potential and withdrawing. The season also demonstrated the cost of his rapid accumulation of contests. In only two years he had moved from newcomer to champion and international competitor, increasing exposure to heavy yokes, deadlifts, presses and carries. Managing the body was becoming as important as simply adding weight to the bar.

SCL Poland 2022, the first major international victory. On 27 August 2022 in Sopot, Ziółkowski earned one of the wins that changed the trajectory of his career. Strongman Archives lists him first among twelve competitors, ahead of Aivars Šmaukstelis and Maciej Hirsz. For a strongman whose résumé at that point included a national title and a Savickas Classic podium, an SCL victory provided validation against a deeply experienced international field. The event selection suited his versatility: Atlas Stones, log lift, sandbag toss, super yoke, truck pull and shot put. He placed third on stones, third on log, second on sandbag toss, second on yoke, fourth on truck pull and first in shot put. That distribution explains the overall win. He did not dominate most events, but he stayed close to the top almost everywhere. The shot-put victory, with 8.67 m on the competition implement, formed a direct bridge back to his athletics background. Many strongmen must learn throwing mechanics from the beginning; Ziółkowski had already spent years developing rotational timing and explosive transfer. The Sopot victory also improved his standing inside the broader European circuit. Strongman Champions League uses many international stages, and reputation is built through repeated appearances rather than one isolated championship. Winning at home in Poland cannot simply be dismissed as a home-field advantage because the competitors he beat were established SCL athletes accustomed to international podiums. When Ziółkowski later won the 2023 SCL World Finals, the 2022 Sopot result looked like the first chapter of that progression. From that moment, he was no longer merely a Polish national champion trying to enter global strongman. He was already a winner within a major international series.

Official Strongman Games 2022 and the first major American test. In November 2022, Ziółkowski traveled to Daytona Beach, Florida, for the Official Strongman Games and finished sixth in the Men’s Open final. For an athlete who had debuted at his national championship only two years earlier, simply reaching an OSG Open final represented unusually fast progress. The implements were significantly heavier than many of his earlier European contests. Strongman Archives lists Atlas Stones from 136 to 193 kg, a dumbbell medley reaching 109 kg, car walk, sandbag to shoulder up to 170 kg, axle deadlift for repetitions, farmer’s walk and Viking press. Ziółkowski placed second on the stones, third in the dumbbell medley and fourth on sandbag to shoulder, but lost important points on car walk and Viking press. The contrast is instructive. At international level, an athlete can be excellent in half the events and still finish in the middle of the standings if two events pull the score downward. Polish local reporting also documented the logistical side of the trip. Ziółkowski spoke about an intense preparation that was shorter than he would have preferred and about the financial cost of competing in the United States. Sponsors such as Real Pharm and Peptogen, together with support organized through the school community in Wielki Komorsk, helped make the trip possible. That episode belongs in his biography because it shows the relationship between athlete and home community before he became a regular name at major international shows. People from his region materially helped him reach the competitions that could determine his next career step. Sixth place at OSG confirmed that he could survive a demanding international final and provided valuable experience for the exceptional season that followed.

The Polish Log Lift Championships and development of overhead strength. In September 2022, Strongman Archives records a 187.5 kg log lift for Ziółkowski at the Polish Log Lift Championships. The number becomes more meaningful when placed in the progression of his career. He had lifted 170 kg at the Savickas Classic in 2021 and would reach 190 kg in competition in 2024. The development shows that pressing was not a static gift but a quality trained systematically. A strongman log demands much more than shoulder and triceps strength. The clean to the chest, positioning of the implement on the torso, breathing under compression, leg drive and final stabilization all separate a strong lifter from an effective log presser. Ziółkowski became particularly efficient in repetition events. On the SCL circuit, where 150 to 160 kg logs often appear for maximum repetitions, he has repeatedly won events with six or seven reps. That ability can be more valuable to an overall score than a slightly larger single-repetition maximum. An athlete who can press 200 kg once is not automatically better in a sixty-second 150 kg repetition event than an athlete with superior cycling efficiency. Ziółkowski has proven competitive in both areas without becoming an absolute world-record specialist. In his profile, overhead strength is best understood as part of his versatility: strong enough for high placements in max log, efficient enough to win repetition events, and technically adaptable enough for medleys using log, axle, dumbbell and block. That combination became central in 2023, when he won log events at SCL Poland and the SCL World Finals, and again in 2025 and 2026 when overhead victories continued to appear throughout his results.

2023, the season that permanently changed his international status. No year defines Oskar Ziółkowski’s rise more clearly than 2023. Within one calendar year he won the Arnold Amateur Strongman World Championships, became SCL Team World Champion with Adam Roszkowski, won the OSG European Championships, debuted at Giants Live, finished second at SCL Poland and ended the season by winning the SCL World Finals in Sarajevo. The sequence was not simply a collection of trophies. It represented a change of competitive category. At the beginning of the year he was a very promising European strongman with one SCL win and an OSG final. By the end, he had major international titles in several systems and a route to the professional Arnold stage. The density of competition was also important. Strongman does not offer a neat season built around one championship. Athletes can move quickly from an SCL stage to a national contest, then to a qualifier and back to another international circuit. Ziółkowski demonstrated in 2023 that he could maintain competitive readiness across very different formats. Arnold Amateur combined static strength with movement, OSG Europe used ladders and medleys, Giants Live introduced arena pressure and a higher average level, while the SCL Finals rewarded total points across classic strongman events. Performing well in all of them required more than raw strength. It required rapid adaptation to different equipment, rules and scoring systems. The year was also symbolic for Polish strongman: Ziółkowski and Roszkowski finished first and second at OSG Europe and together won the SCL Team World Championship. Alongside the established global presence of Mateusz Kieliszkowski, another Polish generation was establishing its own international identity.

The 2023 Arnold Amateur Strongman World Championships. In Columbus, Ohio, Ziółkowski won the Open division of the Arnold Amateur and secured one of the most important victories of his career. Strongman Archives places him first in a ten-man final. The event breakdown shows why his profile works so well across complete contests: second on Power Stairs, second on the Ukrainian Deadlift for repetitions, fourth on max dumbbell with 110 kg, first in the loading race, first in the arm-over-arm pull, third on Viking press and tenth on farmer’s walk. Even with one very poor event, the points accumulated elsewhere were enough to win. The result is a useful lesson in strongman scoring. A champion is not always the athlete without weaknesses. Sometimes he is the athlete with enough high-level strengths to absorb one weak event. For Ziółkowski, Arnold Amateur also mattered as a gateway to the professional Arnold system. The title changed his status from strong international competitor to an athlete relevant for one of the sport’s most prestigious professional stages. Compared with 2020, when he trained in a small garage and borrowed access to implements, the leap was enormous. In fewer than three years he had become an amateur world champion at a globally followed strength festival. Winning did not mean he was immediately ready to beat the best professionals. The professional Arnold Strongman Classic uses heavier weights, distinctive implements and a far deeper concentration of elite talent. But that is exactly the function of a high-level amateur championship: to identify who deserves the next test. Ziółkowski passed that test and a year later would stand on the professional Arnold stage beside established names of his generation.

The 2023 SCL Team World Championships with Adam Roszkowski. In June 2023, at Kalajoki in Finland, Ziółkowski and Adam Roszkowski represented Poland at the Strongman Champions League Team World Championships. Published results show the Polish pair winning with 47.5 points ahead of Latvia’s Aivars Šmaukstelis and Māris Krievelis. The competition included truck pull, forward hold, deadlift for repetitions, frame walk, bag toss medley, two-man log lift and loading race. Reports indicated that the Polish team won six of the seven events, with the forward hold as the main exception. This is one of the more interesting titles in Ziółkowski’s résumé because team strongman changes the logic of the sport. In an individual contest, every mistake affects only the athlete who made it. In a pair competition, synchronization, division of effort and pacing become strategic variables. Some events demand simultaneous movement, while others allow one athlete to compensate for the other. Ziółkowski and Roszkowski had complementary profiles but enough overlap in quality to maintain a high standard almost everywhere. The victory arrived only months after Arnold Amateur and before the OSG European Championships, strengthening the argument that 2023 was not a short-lived peak. Their competitive relationship continued through the season. At OSG Europe they finished first and second, while at SCL Poland they occupied second and third. In an era when Mateusz Kieliszkowski remained the most internationally recognized Polish strongman, Ziółkowski and Roszkowski showed that the depth of Polish strength sport did not depend on a single elite name. The team title added another dimension to Ziółkowski’s profile: he could apply his versatility inside a cooperative format rather than only an individual scoreboard.

The busy Polish summer of 2023 and the ability to compete often. Between major international titles, Ziółkowski continued entering domestic Polish contests. Sportowe Świecie reported, for example, a third place at the Polish Cup in Potęgowo only days after the Team World Championships in Finland, followed by a victory in Mutowo where he beat Adam Roszkowski. In July he won the Strongman Super Series in Trzebiatów, while Strongman Archives also lists him as the winner of Pojedynek Gigantów in Kartuzy. These competitions do not carry the same global visibility as Arnold or Giants Live, but they matter to the development and economics of a European strongman. They provide exposure to different equipment, opportunities to compete in front of domestic crowds, income and repeated practice under real scoring pressure. The frequency also carries a cost. A strongman contest is not a light technical session. It can include a yoke above 400 kg, 150 to 180 kg logs, heavy deadlifts, holds, carries and loading. Recovery between weekends becomes a strategic problem. Reporting around the Mutowo contest noted that Ziółkowski and Roszkowski had only six days to recover from the event in Finland. The fact that Ziółkowski could return and win suggests strong work capacity and an ability to regulate effort, but his previous back issue demonstrates that such scheduling is not without risk. The summer of 2023 therefore reveals something that headline championships alone cannot show. International success was layered on top of a very high volume of regional and national competition. He did not appear only on television-ready stages. He remained embedded in the Polish circuit that had formed him, and repeated contact with real implements under fatigue became part of the technical education behind his later consistency.

OSG European Championships 2023, the title that opened the Giants Live door. In August 2023 at ExCeL London, Ziółkowski won the Men’s Open division of the Official Strongman Games European Championships with 43.5 points. Published results place Adam Roszkowski second with 39.5 and Ondřej Fojtů third with 38. For Ziółkowski, the title was especially meaningful because the event set combined speed, pressing and static strength. He won the Deadlift Ladder and Sandbag Steeplechase, finished second on Log Lift and fourth on Super Yoke, Shield Carry and Power Stairs. Once again, the scoring pattern reflected his strongest competitive formula: a couple of event wins, no catastrophic result and enough high placements to control the total. The championship earned him access to the Giants Live Strongman Open, a step upward in visibility and average competitive level. Giants Live is not merely another contest series. It is one of the principal arena platforms connected to World’s Strongest Man and regularly features athletes accustomed to large crowds, broadcast schedules and extremely narrow scoring margins. For a competitor who had worked as a truck driver and trained in a garage only a few years earlier, the qualification carried strong symbolic value. Technically, OSG Europe also confirmed two developing specialities: deadlift ladders and sandbag movement. His throwing background, hip strength and speed with heavy objects allowed him to turn sandbag work into a consistent source of points. A deadlift ladder similarly rewards not just maximal strength but technical efficiency and fast setup across progressively heavier bars. Winning both types of event in one competition demonstrated the breadth of his skill set and helped establish him as more than a domestic champion.

Giants Live World Open 2023, the debut on a global arena stage. In early September 2023, Ziółkowski competed at the Giants Live World Open in Cardiff. Strongman Archives currently places him sixth of eleven, while an older version of the Giants Live athlete profile referred to seventh; this profile follows the current archival result while noting the discrepancy. His most memorable performance was a victory in the Dumbbell Ladder, completing five implements in 54.36 seconds and taking first place against an elite field. He was also fifth on Atlas Stones, sixth on the Wrecking Ball Hold and fifth in Load & Push. The major problem was the World Deadlift Championships event integrated into the show, where he failed to register a successful lift and therefore lost all available points. The result compresses one of strongman’s central paradoxes into a single competition: an athlete can win a spectacular event and still finish in the middle of the overall standings because one zero is so expensive. For Ziółkowski, the Giants Live debut was still more promising than discouraging. It proved that his giant dumbbell pressing was good enough to defeat established international specialists and that stones remained a useful scoring event. It also exposed him to the pace of an arena production, where strict timing, crowd noise and broadcast pressure create a different environment from many outdoor European contests. Giants Live later highlighted how impressive his rise had been while maintaining a conventional job through much of the early process. Cardiff did not give him the overall result he might have wanted, but it made his name far more recognizable internationally and provided experience that could not be reproduced in training.

SCL Poland 2023 and the lesson of half a point. Only days before his Giants Live appearance, Ziółkowski had finished second at Strongman Champions League Poland in Sopot, losing to the Netherlands’ Kevin Hazeleger by only half a point. Adam Roszkowski completed the podium. The event results show how close Ziółkowski came to another win: second on Power Stairs, first on Log Lift with seven repetitions, second on Sandbag Toss, fifth on Frame Carry and tenth on Truck Push. Once again, one poor event changed the entire contest. This recurring pattern is useful for understanding his later development. Strongman does not allow an athlete to maximize every quality simultaneously. Increasing deadlift strength can affect speed, extra bodyweight can help pressing but harm movement, and specializing for log can steal preparation time from stones or carries. Ziółkowski remained a powerful generalist, but certain events still exposed larger weaknesses. The half-point loss in Sopot was one of those contests where every second and position mattered. Judging the season by that runner-up finish alone would miss the larger picture. By August he had already won Arnold Amateur, the Team World Championship and OSG Europe. SCL Poland simply showed that vulnerability still existed. At the same time, winning the log and placing second on stairs and toss confirmed strength in exactly the types of events that would matter later in the SCL World Finals. A contest lost by half a point became part of the education that helped him close the year with the circuit’s most important title.

SCL World Finals 2023, the victory in Sarajevo. On 18 November 2023, Oskar Ziółkowski won the Strongman Champions League World Finals in Sarajevo against a twelve-man field, scoring 67.5 points. Aivars Šmaukstelis finished second with 65 and Kevin Hazeleger third with 60.5. Strongman Archives and contemporary reports show a contest almost perfectly suited to Ziółkowski’s complete-athlete profile. He was second in truck pull, second in car deadlift, fourth in farmer’s walk, first in log lift, second in loading race and second in Atlas Stones. He never finished outside the top four and still found an event victory in the press. In a sport where scoring can swing violently from one event to the next, that is a championship formula: eliminate catastrophic placements. Sarajevo was perhaps the clearest expression of his versatility at that stage of his career. There was no single implement that rescued him. He had to pull a truck, deadlift, carry, press, load and lift stones. He also defeated an athlete such as Šmaukstelis, well known for his consistency across the SCL circuit. Reports on the contest emphasized Ziółkowski’s steadiness as the decisive quality. The title closed a season in which he had won in systems with very different competitive styles: Arnold Amateur in the United States, OSG Europe in London and the SCL final in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that point there was little question that he belonged among high-level international strongmen. The question for 2024 was no longer whether he could win outside Poland, but how he would adapt when elite professional fields at Arnold and World’s Strongest Man became the regular standard.

Technical profile: a powerful all-rounder rather than a one-event specialist. When Ziółkowski’s results are read across several seasons, a clear pattern emerges. His best contests are rarely built around one huge event win followed by survival everywhere else. Instead, he remains in the upper section of the standings across many implements. The 2023 SCL World Finals are the near-perfect example, with six events and no placing worse than fourth. The same broad scoring profile appears at OSG Europe 2023, multiple editions of SCL Poland and several victories during 2026. In strongman terms, this means relatively few events are structurally hostile to him. He can press overhead, pull heavy, move effectively enough with frames and yokes, perform technically on stones and use the explosive base of a former thrower. Weaknesses still exist. Certain speed or pushing events have produced low placings, and at Giants Live or the professional Arnold the difference between an excellent international generalist and a regular world-podium contender becomes much more severe. Yet on European circuits, the breadth of his ability makes him difficult to remove from an overall contest. Training such a profile requires careful allocation of resources. Too much deadlift specialization can reduce speed; too much bodyweight loss can hurt pressing stability and squat strength; too much log emphasis can leave carries and loading behind. Ziółkowski’s career suggests a preference for maintaining a high level across several qualities rather than sacrificing everything for one spectacular record. The result is not always a headline number, but it is often a strong overall score. In strongman, the total points rather than the prettiest individual lift decide the trophy.

Overhead strength: log, dumbbell, axle and medleys. One of Ziółkowski’s clearest competitive signatures is his ability to score heavily in overhead events, especially when they demand repetitions or transitions between several implements. At the 2023 Giants Live World Open he won the Dumbbell Ladder, a result that introduced him to a much larger global audience. At the 2023 SCL World Finals he won the log lift, and at SCL Poland 2026 he again won the log with seven repetitions. In the 2026 Bulgaria Strongman World Battle he took first in an overhead medley combining a 140 kg log, 110 kg block, 100 kg sandbag and 100 kg dumbbell for repetitions. That variety says more about skill than one maximum number. Log and axle require different cleans, the unilateral dumbbell demands lateral stabilization and coordination, and the block has an awkward center of mass. An athlete who moves efficiently between them is not merely strong in shoulders and triceps. He is specifically adapted to the chaos of strongman equipment. Ziółkowski’s 190 kg competition log from the 2024 Polish Log Lift Championships places him firmly at international level without making him a world-record specialist. Giants Live had previously published training lifts around 190 kg on log and 185 kg on axle, suggesting that the pressing base was already established before 2024. What differentiates him most is repeatability. In a one-day contest, overhead work may come after truck pull, carries or deadlift, meaning technique must survive accumulated fatigue. Ziółkowski has repeatedly shown that he can preserve enough efficiency under those conditions to win the event rather than merely complete it. That reliability is one reason pressing has remained a defining part of his overall scoring profile.

Deadlift, squat and the rise toward a one-ton-plus powerlifting total. Early in his international strongman career, Ziółkowski was viewed more as a balanced athlete than as a deadlift specialist. Development from 2022 through 2026 changed that picture. At the 2024 Arnold Strongman Classic he lifted 370 kg on the Elephant Bar. In powerlifting, OpenPowerlifting records a 380 kg deadlift in 2025, while Strongman Archives lists a 400 kg elevated axle deadlift at the 2026 European Strongman Cup. The implements and ranges of motion prevent direct comparison, but the direction is clear: his pulling ceiling increased substantially. The squat developed even more dramatically. In 2025 he produced 400 kg in powerlifting competition, and in February 2026 reached 415 kg with wraps at Clash of Titans 4. These numbers should not be confused with strongman squat apparatus performances, where bar position, depth standards and equipment may differ. That is why this profile separates powerlifting records from strongman event results. What can be stated confidently is that Ziółkowski built a much larger static base than he possessed in 2020 and 2021. That base creates useful reserve capacity in repetition events. A 300 kg squat becomes a smaller fraction of absolute strength when the lifter can squat above 400 kg, allowing better cycling and fatigue management. Similarly, deadlift repetitions in the 320 to 340 kg range become more manageable when comparable maximal strength has moved significantly higher. Powerlifting does not replace strongman specificity, but in Ziółkowski’s case it has functioned as a laboratory for expanding the ceiling of raw strength that can later be translated back into event performance.

Throwing, the bridge between athletics and strongman. If one part of Ziółkowski’s sporting biography forms a nearly circular story, it is throwing. He began as a shot-put athlete with junior marks recorded by World Athletics, then moved into strongman and continued converting explosiveness into points in sandbag toss and related ballistic events. At Poland’s Strongest Man 2020 he won the sandbag toss; at SCL Poland 2022 he won the shot-put event; at OSG Europe 2023 he won the Sandbag Steeplechase; and in 2026 he placed second in sandbag toss at both the European Strongman Cup and PSL Beach Blocks. The preference is not accidental. Throwing requires a special relationship between force and velocity. Being capable of deadlifting 380 kg does not guarantee the ability to accelerate a 30 kg bag fast enough to clear a high bar. Ziółkowski spent years in athletics learning to produce force quickly and coordinate extension through the ankle, knee and hip. In strongman, that motor education is reused in a rougher form, but the principle remains. On sandbag toss, the difference between a bag clipping the bar and clearing it cleanly may come from a fraction of a second in release timing. For an athlete weighing roughly 150 to 160 kg, preserving speed becomes more difficult as static strength and body mass increase. Ziółkowski’s continued competitiveness in throwing during 2026, after raising his powerlifting total above one metric ton, suggests that he did not lose the explosive qualities that first defined him as a junior athlete. Instead, they remained one of the more distinctive threads connecting the beginning of his sporting life to his mature strongman career.

Atlas Stones, farmer’s walk and moving events. In a public athlete presentation for a Swedish contest, Ziółkowski listed sandbag throw, Atlas Stones, farmer’s walk and squat among his favorite events. The choices align closely with the record. At the 2022 Official Strongman Games he finished second on stones, at the 2023 SCL World Finals he was second again, at SCL Poland 2026 he won Atlas Stones by loading six stones up to 180 kg in 25.97 seconds, and at PSL Beach Blocks 2026 he completed a five-stone series up to 200 kg for second place. Stones are among the most technical events in strongman despite appearing, from the outside, to be a demonstration of brute force. Arm position, the lap, hip extension, transition onto the platform and breathing must be repeated without the forearms or lower back collapsing. Ziółkowski is not merely capable of lifting heavy stones. He cycles them quickly. Farmer’s and frame carry results have been more variable, but recent seasons include strong placements such as second on Frame Carry at SCL Poland 2026. That matters because increased bodyweight and a greater powerlifting emphasis can reduce movement speed. Remaining competitive with a heavy frame indicates that his preparation did not become purely static. Moving events force a different expression of strength: the athlete must transmit force into the ground with every step while controlling an implement that swings and destabilizes the body. Grip, legs and conditioning become inseparable. For a generalist such as Ziółkowski, those events provide one of the clearest tests of whether added strength has actually remained usable across the broader sport.

The 2024 Arnold Strongman Classic and entry into the deepest professional level. After winning Arnold Amateur in 2023, Ziółkowski reached the professional Arnold Strongman Classic in Columbus in March 2024. Strongman Archives places him tenth among eleven competitors in a field containing a large portion of the world’s elite. The placing can look modest without context, but the distance between Arnold Amateur and the professional Arnold Classic is enormous. Loads increase, implements are designed to separate athletes who are already exceptional, and every weakness is magnified. Ziółkowski lifted 370 kg in the Elephant Bar Deadlift, but his overall score was not enough to enter podium contention. The experience matters precisely because it revealed the standard of the next level. In circuits such as SCL or national contests, his versatility could produce championships. At the professional Arnold, that same versatility needed to be combined with peaks of strength and speed comparable to the best athletes alive. Polish coverage around the contest showed him training with Mateusz Kieliszkowski at Kuźnia Kielicha, illustrating how dramatically his access to elite preparation environments had improved from the small garage of 2020. The result should neither be minimized nor inflated into a success unsupported by the standings. It was a difficult competition and a poor overall placing relative to the expectations attached to an Arnold Amateur champion, but also an indispensable exposure to professional-level demands. For an athlete still comparatively new to strongman, reaching that stage only four years after his national debut remained a significant marker of how quickly his career had developed.

Arnold UK 2024 and adaptation to a second Arnold contest. Only weeks after Columbus, Ziółkowski competed at Arnold UK Strongman and finished sixth of eight. Strongman Archives shows a mixed event profile but also moments that confirmed his established strengths. He placed second in the Sandbag Toss for Height, again demonstrating the advantage of his throwing background. Other events, including deadlift and pressing challenges, did not produce enough points for a higher overall position. Two Arnold contests in such a short period also created an unusual preparation burden. Arnold implements are often distinctive, and athletes may spend weeks simulating equipment they will rarely encounter elsewhere during the season. For Ziółkowski, this phase also overlapped with preparation for World’s Strongest Man. He could not create a separate peak for every competition, so 2024 became an education in managing readiness across elite events. Sixth in the UK was better than his overall placing in Columbus, yet still short of regular podium contention in the Arnold ecosystem. The sandbag result nevertheless showed that some of his strongest qualities remained competitive regardless of field strength. This combination of limitations and confirmations is essential in a serious biography. Careers do not progress cleanly from victory to victory. Sometimes progress means entering a harder contest, falling down the standings and learning exactly how large the gap is between the level at which an athlete was winning and the level he now wants to reach. Arnold UK formed part of that adjustment process before his first World’s Strongest Man appearance.

World’s Strongest Man 2024, first contact with the sport’s most recognizable championship. In May 2024 at Myrtle Beach, Ziółkowski made his World’s Strongest Man debut. Strongman Archives records him in Group 1, where he finished sixth and did not qualify for the final. This is one of those cases where stating only the placing can be misleading. WSM is not a simple contest with one uninterrupted ranking from first to last. It begins with qualifying groups, and athletes who do not collect enough points are eliminated before the final. For Ziółkowski, the debut meant entering a format in which each qualification point has disproportionate value. One weak event can make recovery almost impossible, especially in a strong group. Failing to reach the final showed that the level he had achieved in SCL and OSG did not automatically translate into top WSM performance. At the same time, the invitation and appearance confirmed how far he had travelled in only a few seasons. From his first Polish national podium in 2020 to World’s Strongest Man in 2024 is only four years. The experience also exposed him directly to WSM-specific demands: long schedules, periods of waiting, purpose-built equipment and the pressure of needing to execute immediately because there are relatively few opportunities to recover points. Through the end of September 2026, Strongman Archives still lists 2024 as his only WSM appearance. That should not be turned into a prediction about his future. The documented fact is simpler. Ziółkowski reached the most visible stage in strongman but has not yet converted that opportunity into a WSM final.

Reclaiming Poland’s Strongest Man in 2024 and a season with two faces. After Arnold and World’s Strongest Man, Ziółkowski returned to domestic competition and won Poland’s Strongest Man again, claiming his second national title after the 2021 championship. Polish media documented the victory in Inowrocław, and Strongman Archives confirms the result. In the same season he finished third at Strongman Champions League Poland, showing that despite modest placings in the largest global contests, he remained a podium-level athlete in the European ecosystem. The contrast is one of the most revealing features of his 2024 season. Ziółkowski had not suddenly become weaker because he finished near the bottom at Arnold or failed to leave his WSM group. The relative strength of the field had changed. When he returned to a national contest, experience accumulated against the world elite made him one of the strongest logical favorites. The year also included a 190 kg competition log, an improvement over the 187.5 kg figure from 2022. Taken as a whole, 2024 was more a season of consolidation than explosion. It did not reproduce the string of international titles from 2023, but it included the professional Arnold, Arnold UK, a WSM debut, another national championship and an SCL podium. Maintaining that baseline across so many competitive systems is difficult in itself. After the expectations created by 2023, the season demonstrated that entry into the absolute top tier is not a simple mathematical extension of amateur or SCL success. It requires years of adjustment to heavier implements, different formats and opponents who turn even small weaknesses into large point losses.

Powerlifting as an extension of the career rather than an abandonment of strongman. Alongside strongman, Ziółkowski began appearing more seriously in powerlifting competitions. OpenPowerlifting records him in WPC and later WRPF meets, giving a standardized statistical view separate from gym claims or social media clips. In October 2024 at the WPC Poland Classic Raw Championship, he totaled 985 kg at approximately 151.9 kg bodyweight: a 360 kg squat, 255 kg bench press and 370 kg deadlift. He won his class, and the performance confirmed that his pressing and leg strength transferred effectively into a sport with more narrowly defined standards. Powerlifting completely changes competition rhythm. There are no carries, throws or awkward objects, and the lifter receives three attempts in each of three movements. Strategy shifts from adapting to implements toward attempt selection, technical execution and control of maximal load. For Ziółkowski, that structure could function as a laboratory for static strength. A bench press above 250 kg is not a strongman event, but it contributes to pressing mass and strength; a heavier squat raises the ceiling for strongman squat repetitions; a standardized deadlift provides precise feedback about pulling progress. Crucially, he did not retire from strongman to become a powerlifter. Throughout 2025 and 2026 he continued competing frequently in strongman, sometimes only weeks away from platform meets. The crossover became part of his athletic identity, demonstrating a desire to test absolute strength inside a more standardized system while retaining the technical chaos and broader athletic demands of strongman.

The 2025 WPC European Championships and a 1,040 kg total. In June 2025 in Wrocław, Ziółkowski produced one of the strongest powerlifting performances of his career. OpenPowerlifting records him at 154.6 kg bodyweight in the 140+ class with wraps, totaling 1,040 kg from a 400 kg squat, 260 kg bench press and 380 kg deadlift. He won within his competitive category, while Polish reporting described the performance in record terms within the context of the federation and meet. Precision matters here. Powerlifting contains multiple federations, equipment divisions and record standards, so an absolute phrase such as national record can depend on organization and category. What is unambiguous is the official 1,040 kg total and its 55 kg improvement over his 985 kg total from 2024. The largest gains came in the squat, moving from 360 to 400 kg, and deadlift, rising from 370 to 380 kg, while the bench increased by five kilograms. A total above one metric ton is both a symbolic and practical marker. For a strongman, it shows that base strength is not merely the product of favorable implements. The standardized three-lift format demands technical control and permits clearer comparison between meets. Ziółkowski demonstrated that he could operate effectively in a sport where versatility earns no extra points and the task is simply to maximize three barbell lifts. Later that same year he returned to strongman and stood on European podiums, making the result more interesting. There was no permanent switch from one sport to another. Instead, two strength disciplines overlapped inside the same competitive career.

Strongman in 2025, between podiums and rebuilding. The 2025 season did not contain one overwhelming title on the scale of the 2023 SCL World Finals, but it was dense with high-level results. Ziółkowski finished second at Strongman Champions League Poland with 48.5 points behind Britain’s Graham Hicks. He was second at the Europe Strongman Cup, won the Strongman Cup in Kwidzyn, placed third at the Central European Strongman Cup and returned to the Official Strongman Games, where he finished fifth in the Open final. The series shows an athlete rebalancing after 2024, when exposure to Arnold and WSM had lowered his relative placings. In 2025 he did not isolate himself around one target competition. He continued using Polish and European contests as both goals and real-world event practice. The SCL Poland podium confirmed that overhead and mixed events remained competitive, while domestic and regional results showed his ability to adapt to very different implement sets. At the same time, powerlifting had raised his static strength ceiling. The challenge was converting that new force into strongman points without surrendering too much speed or conditioning. Strongman Archives shows that he remained dangerous in dumbbell work, deadlift ladders, stones and loaded movement. From a career perspective, 2025 matters precisely because it was not built only around prestige. Ziółkowski competed globally, regionally and domestically, accumulating both experience and visibility. For an athlete without guaranteed permanent invitations to WSM or the professional Arnold, maintaining relevance across several circuits is essential. The year showed that his career had not faded after the 2023 peak. It was broadening and becoming more durable.

Official Strongman Games 2025 and a return to the top five. At the 2025 Official Strongman Games, Ziółkowski returned to the Men’s Open final and finished fifth overall. Strongman Archives shows him competitive across several events, including third in the Dumbbell Ladder and fourth in the Deadlift Ladder. For an athlete whose competitive identity had been built partly around efficient ladders and medleys, those results were consistent with the established profile. OSG occupies a distinctive place in the strongman ecosystem. It brings together a broad international field and often serves athletes trying to move toward Giants Live and World’s Strongest Man, or to re-establish themselves after previous appearances. Ziółkowski already had WSM experience, but OSG remained an important platform for proving that his international level was not accidental. Fifth in 2025 improved modestly on sixth in 2022 while the competitive landscape had continued to evolve. More important than the single placing was how he scored. He did not rely on one maximal record but on efficient performance across a long sequence of events. OSG often rewards athletes who can survive multiple competition days, something well suited to Ziółkowski’s history of frequent starts and rapid recovery between contests. By the end of 2025 the picture was clear. He had not yet returned to World’s Strongest Man, but he held a European powerlifting title, several strongman podiums and a top-five OSG finish. Instead of a career that peaked in 2023 and declined, his trajectory had become one of accumulation, diversification and a much larger static-strength base.

2026, a season of volume, increased bodyweight and repeated victories. At age thirty, Ziółkowski entered 2026 at a point where competitive experience and static strength met at a new level. A public Swedish athlete presentation listed him around 192 cm and 158 kg, heavier than the 148 to 150 kg figures commonly published during his earlier international years. OpenPowerlifting recorded 159.5 kg bodyweight at Clash of Titans 4 in February. The extra mass did not eliminate mobility, and his summer strongman results became some of the most productive of his career. Strongman Archives records victories at PSL Esztergom, the PSL Truck Pull Championships, PSL Beach Blocks, the European Strongman Cup and the Final Strongman Cup, plus runner-up finishes at Bulgaria Strongman World Battle and SCL Poland. That volume of top results within only a few months is significant even when not every contest carries the prestige of WSM or Arnold. The fields were international and the event sets varied widely. Ziółkowski had to rotate between overhead pressing, truck pull, stones, elevated deadlift, power stairs and loaded carries without long preparation blocks between each test. At the same time, he continued powerlifting, squatting 415 kg at Clash of Titans and appearing in WRPF competition. The season illustrates the direction of his mature career. Rather than pursuing only one contest type, he used several formats to maintain competitive strength and technical exposure. At European level, the approach worked. By late September 2026 his recent résumé was substantially richer than it had been through the more difficult 2024 and transitional 2025 seasons.

PSL Esztergom 2026 and the start of the competitive summer. On 6 June 2026, Ziółkowski won the Premium Strongman League stage in Esztergom, Hungary, against an eleven-man field. Strongman Archives lists him as the overall winner, and the event results again underline the value of his overhead ability. The victory came at an important point in the season, after powerlifting competitions during the opening months of the year. That meant he had to convert strength built through squat, bench press and deadlift back into specific strongman skills very quickly. A log or overhead medley does not behave like a bench press, and a truck pull is not simply an extension of a deadlift. Event skill has to be reacquired through practice. Winning a PSL contest so soon after the powerlifting phase suggests that strongman specificity had never been abandoned. Across the Premium Strongman League appearances, overhead remained one of his most dependable ways to collect points. More importantly, Esztergom did not stand alone. It became the opening of a summer filled with competitions, often in different countries and sometimes with little recovery between them. For a 158 to 160 kg athlete, that frequency creates enormous recovery demands. Travel, changing weather, unfamiliar equipment and repeated maximal efforts all accumulate. Ziółkowski’s former career as a professional driver may have made him familiar with the logistics of long travel, but physiology cannot be negotiated away. Joints, tendons and the nervous system still require recovery. His 2026 results suggest that he found a workable balance, turning a crowded schedule into repeated podiums rather than a steady decline in performance. Esztergom was the first major signal that the summer would become one of the most productive periods of his strongman career.

Bulgaria Strongman World Battle 2026, second place built on pressing and deadlift. On 27 June 2026, Ziółkowski competed at the Bulgaria Strongman World Battle and finished second of eleven. Strongman Archives records two particularly significant event victories: the Overhead Medley and Car Deadlift. The medley required athletes to negotiate a 140 kg log, 110 kg block, 100 kg sandbag and 100 kg dumbbell for repetitions. Ziółkowski completed eight successful lifts inside the ninety-second limit and won the event. On Car Deadlift he achieved fifteen repetitions and again placed first. He also finished second on Hercules Hold and Conan’s Wheel, creating an exceptionally strong overall score. The contest is almost a summary of his mature profile. Complex overhead work requires technical fluency across several implements, deadlift for repetitions demands both maximal reserve and conditioning, Hercules Hold attacks grip and pain tolerance, while Conan’s Wheel adds movement under a load that compresses breathing. Ziółkowski scored heavily in all of them. Finishing second overall shows how fine the margins can become in a balanced field, but the performance also confirms that strength developed through powerlifting had transferred back into strongman. Fifteen repetitions on a car deadlift are more informative in that regard than an isolated gym maximum because they show the ability to repeat force under time pressure after other events. Bulgaria became one of the stops that prepared his subsequent July and August winning streak. Rather than reducing the schedule after a podium, Ziółkowski continued competing, effectively using each event as both a result in its own right and a high-intensity rehearsal for the next challenge.

PSL Truck Pull Championships and PSL Beach Blocks, two wins in two days. At Siófok, Hungary, Ziółkowski produced one of the most efficient sequences of his 2026 season. On 24 July he won the PSL Truck Pull Championships with a combined time of 55.99 seconds. One day later he won PSL Beach Blocks, where Strongman Archives places him second on Atlas Stones, second on the Silver Dollar Deadlift with nine repetitions and second on Sandbag Toss, along with a solid Block Press result. Winning two contests across consecutive days highlights a quality that is difficult to measure in the gym: competitive recovery. Truck pull heavily stresses the posterior chain, calves, back and cardiovascular system. The following day, many of the same systems must produce force again for deadlift, stones and throwing. Ziółkowski did more than simply participate. He remained near the top of the decisive events. The stone series reached 200 kg, while the sandbag toss used bags up to 30 kg over a 4.2 m bar. These were not light exhibition events but genuine international strongman loads. The truck-pull title is also significant for an athlete more commonly associated with pressing and throwing. Pulling a vehicle is sensitive to technique, surface friction, footwear, body angle and step rhythm; a large deadlift alone cannot solve the event. Winning a contest dedicated to truck pull therefore shows an expansion of his competitive profile. The two days in Siófok are among the clearest demonstrations of his versatility and endurance in 2026, combining a specialized pulling championship with a mixed contest built around static strength, stones and explosive throwing.

SCL Poland 2026, runner-up with victories in log and Atlas Stones. On 15 August 2026 in Niechorze, Ziółkowski returned to the Strongman Champions League Poland podium, finishing second overall. Pavlo Kordiyaka won the contest, but Ziółkowski took first in two events that define his career. In the Log Lift he completed seven repetitions for the event win. On Atlas Stones he loaded all six stones, from 100 to 180 kg, in 25.97 seconds, again placing first. He was second on Frame Carry and fourth on Power Stairs, losing more points on the Boat Pull. The scoring profile closely resembles earlier seasons: elite overhead and stones, strong moving events, but one event preventing a podium from becoming an overall victory. The context makes the performance even more impressive. Only three weeks earlier he had won two PSL contests, and the day after SCL Poland he would compete again at the European Strongman Cup. From a recovery perspective the schedule was almost brutal. Seven log repetitions confirm that a one-repetition maximum is not the only meaningful measure of his pressing. In a timed repetition event, each lift after the fourth or fifth becomes a contest of breathing, stability and technical efficiency. Seven repetitions can defeat athletes with similar or even larger single-lift ceilings. The stones performance, under twenty-six seconds for six implements, shows an automated and technically mature execution. At thirty years old, Ziółkowski was not merely stronger than he had been in 2021. He had become more efficient at the events repeated hundreds of times across training and competition.

European Strongman Cup and Final Strongman Cup 2026, closing the summer with two titles. On 16 August, only one day after SCL Poland, Ziółkowski won the European Strongman Cup in Wejherowo. Strongman Archives records a victory on Power Stairs, second place in the elevated axle deadlift with 400 kg, second in sandbag toss, second in log lift, third in Hercules Hold and fourth on yoke. It is exactly the distribution that made him SCL World Finals champion in 2023: one win and almost no large hole in the standings. The 400 kg elevated axle deadlift is one of the largest publicly documented pulling figures of his career and shows how much his static ceiling had increased. Two weeks later, on 30 August, he won the Final Strongman Cup in Kwidzyn. He took first on Power Stairs, second on Conan’s Wheel, second in max log with 180 kg and second in a yoke-farmer’s medley, even though he managed only fifth on axle deadlift. The mid- and late-August run forms a logical closing point for a biography updated through September 2026. Ziółkowski was not entering a phase of retirement or decline. He was in one of the most active competitive periods of his career. The high contest volume makes it unrealistic to expect peak form at every start, yet the frequency of podiums indicates an exceptionally high baseline. For an archival athlete profile, these results are important because his career should not be frozen at the image of the 2023 champion. By 2026 he had become heavier, stronger statically and far more decorated across European circuits.

Public personal life, profession and the limits of responsible biography. Ziółkowski does not build his public image around exposing intimate details, and a serious profile should respect that boundary. Personal information included here comes only from public athlete presentations and interviews. Giants Live has noted that he is married and has a young daughter. A Swedish event presentation published in 2026 names his wife as Monika and his daughter as Amelia, stating that Amelia was seven at the time. The same source describes Ziółkowski as a personal trainer and notes that he previously worked as a truck driver. Those facts are enough to describe the professional transition without inventing addresses, private family histories or relationships that have not been publicly discussed. In that presentation, Ziółkowski also identified Žydrūnas Savickas as his strongman inspiration, a natural reference for an Eastern European athlete drawn to static strength and competitive longevity. His favorite events were listed as sandbag throw, Atlas Stones, farmer’s walk and squat, preferences that broadly match his actual results. Beyond family, one constant in his biography is the connection to his home region. Media around Świecie and Warlubie followed him from his first podiums, local community support helped finance the journey to Official Strongman Games, and international victories continued to be reported as achievements of a local athlete. That relationship adds a social dimension that result tables cannot capture. Ziółkowski reached global stages, but his public story remained connected to Wielki Komorsk, Płochocinek and the people who supported him before major invitations and international recognition arrived.

A legacy still being built and Oskar Ziółkowski’s place in Polish strongman. At the end of September 2026, Ziółkowski’s career remains active, so any final historical judgment would be premature. What can already be documented is substantial: two Poland’s Strongest Man titles, the 2023 Arnold Amateur championship, the 2023 OSG European title, an SCL Team World Championship, victory at the 2023 SCL World Finals, one World’s Strongest Man appearance, repeated Strongman Champions League podiums, a top-five finish at the 2025 Official Strongman Games and five international or interregional wins during the summer of 2026 according to current archives. In parallel, he exceeded a one-ton powerlifting total and raised his competition squat to 415 kg. His route is distinct from the major Polish figures who preceded him. Mariusz Pudzianowski defined an era through dominance and speed, while Mateusz Kieliszkowski became a global reference through moving events and pressing. Ziółkowski should not be presented as a copy of either. His identity is that of a powerful all-rounder with roots in athletics, efficient overhead work, fast stones and an unusual capacity to compete frequently. Sources do not always align perfectly. Bodyweight changes, some websites preserve slightly different historical placings, and records depend on implement and federation. VladimirStrongman therefore favors current databases and official results where possible, noting differences rather than hiding them. The central story is stable. In 2020, Ziółkowski was a national newcomer training in a small garage and borrowing access to strongman implements. Six years later he was an international champion across several circuits, a World’s Strongest Man competitor and an athlete capable of totaling more than a metric ton on the powerlifting platform. That, for now, is the architecture of a rise built through adaptation, accumulated work and relentless competition.

Reading Ziółkowski’s training development through competition results. There is no complete public training diary from which his weekly program can responsibly be reconstructed, and this profile does not invent one. Results still permit several cautious observations. First, the progression from roughly a 170 kg competition log in 2021 toward 187.5 to 190 kg in later seasons, combined with repeated wins in repetition events, suggests that increasing his maximum did not come at the expense of work capacity. Second, the serious move into powerlifting clearly raised his squat and deadlift ceiling, yet continued participation in carries, stones and throwing shows that preparation never became barbell-only. Third, his dense contest schedule requires a different kind of periodization from an athlete who competes twice per year. When starts are separated by only one or two weeks, competition itself can become the heaviest event-specific session, while the training between shows must restore, maintain and rehearse rather than constantly prove new maximums. Documented work with Mateusz Kieliszkowski and Team Strongman Bydgoszcz mattered partly because it gave Ziółkowski access to both expertise and specialized equipment. As his career advanced, he moved from improvisation in a small garage toward environments where international events could be simulated more realistically. That evolution in infrastructure is almost as important as the evolution of the numbers. A strong athlete can possess extraordinary potential, but without a yoke, stones, log, frame and space for pulling, he cannot practice the sport with sufficient specificity. In Ziółkowski’s case, access to better equipment and stronger training environments expanded in parallel with the résumé itself.

Public image, community and representing Poland. Ziółkowski does not rely on an unusually theatrical stage persona for his public identity. The image is more direct: Polish athlete, family man, training, competition and a visible relationship with the region from which he came. That simplicity helped local media follow his career with unusual continuity, from the earliest national results through Arnold, World’s Strongest Man and powerlifting. When the school community in Wielki Komorsk helped support his trip to the Official Strongman Games, the connection between athlete and home region became concrete rather than symbolic. Internationally, Ziółkowski competes inside a Polish strongman tradition with an enormous historical shadow. Any Polish heavyweight is inevitably compared, sometimes unfairly, with the Mariusz Pudzianowski era or with Mateusz Kieliszkowski’s world-level achievements. Such comparisons can distort evaluation. Ziółkowski does not need to reproduce either career for his own record to matter. The national titles, the 2023 international breakthrough and the 2026 run form a distinct career built around versatility and competitive frequency. Representing Poland was especially visible in team competition, where the victory with Adam Roszkowski became one of the clearest statements of a new generation. In strongman, national flags appear constantly in broadcast graphics, athlete introductions and team formats, so nationality is more than decoration. It shapes rivalries, fan support, team structures and the way achievements are received at home. Ziółkowski therefore became not only an athlete with individual results, but also one of the recognizable representatives of contemporary Polish strongman.

Editorial note on sources and profile maintenance. The career of an active strongman changes faster than a printed biography. This profile therefore separates stable information from details that may vary. Date of birth, sporting background, titles and official results are treated as historical anchors. Bodyweight, current occupation, active coaching arrangements and gym records can change from season to season. Strongman Archives serves as the main chronological database for contest results, cross-checked where possible against Giants Live, Official Strongman Games, sports reporting and organizers. OpenPowerlifting provides standardized information on bodyweight, equipment division and the three powerlifting movements. World Athletics is the reference source for Ziółkowski’s earlier throwing career. Polish local journalism supplies something the databases cannot: the beginnings in Wielki Komorsk, the small garage, truck-driving work, community support and the gradual professionalization of his life around strength sport. Where sources differ, the profile does not manufacture certainty. A bodyweight of 148, 150 or 158 kg may all be correct at different moments, while an older athlete page may preserve a placing that a later archival database has corrected. The editorial principle is simple: prefer the official or currently maintained result, note meaningful discrepancies and never fill gaps by guesswork. That is why fields such as an official nickname, some social-media links or a permanent current coach are not populated with unverified information. A complete profile does not mean filling every box at any cost. It means maximizing useful information while protecting accuracy, especially when the athlete is still active and the record continues to change.