When he is not driving for Reading Buses, Adam Hales is one of the world’s ‘strongmen.’
For 31 year old Adam, who is from Woodley, has been a regular on the strongman calendar for the last seven years.
And he has been invited to compete in the World’s Natural Strongman competition in Hungary on October 14.
“I shall be flying out on Friday the 13th and hopefully it won’t be unlucky,” quipped Adam who has set his sights on a place in the British Olympics squad if the natural strongest man becomes a guest sport at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“To perform in the Olympics is the top accolade for any sportsman,” he commented.
He finished fourth in the world in this inaugural open weight competition in Hungary in March, which was a showcase for the Olympics, and attracted 24 competitors from all over the world.
Adam is ranked third in the world in his weight class, under 90kg, after finishing third at the World’s Strongest Man competition, under 90kg, last September in Helsinki .
At present he has the highest ranking in any national competitions for his weight and is the British record holder for maximum weight lifted on the log (130kg) and deadlift (300kg).
He says he is happy with his form and the way he has been performing in competitions, though always conscious that injuries can prove a major setback to further progress.
Adam, who started with Reading Buses on April 2 and has come through their Academy training programme, has been invited by Chief Executive Officer Martijn Gilbert to perform a bus pull for the company’s charity of the year, Red Balloon, later in the year.
“We are all giving our best wishes to Adam and hope he performs amazingly well in Hungary ”, said Martijn.
“He knows he will have all of Reading Buses cheering him on when he competes. And when he returns, we have arranged for a fun competition for him to pull one of our buses – for which we will be setting up a justgiving page so people can donate to our charity of the year.”
Said Adam: “I’m up for it, and although I haven’t pulled a 15 tonne bus before, I have pulled a few different vehicles of which the heaviest was a fire engine.”