The legendary stonelifter you've never heard of
In just the last few months, I've seen videos of people lifting stones across Scotland, Wales, England, Ireland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Sweden, Norway, South Korea's Jeju Island, and Japan – and those are just historic stones. If you told me five years ago we'd see so many people lifting stones across the globe in such a short period of time, I'd have thought you were joking. It's so amazing to see the progress and the passion from the stonelifting community.
While people have been out lifting, I've been relatively quiet so far this year. And there's a reason for it – I've been heads-down working on a project. It's not ready quite yet. But you'll be the first to hear about it when it is.
I took a short break from focusing on that project this month because inspiration struck and I've written a new article. This time on one of my favourite topics: Stonelifting Legends.
Here's your list of topics, feel free to jump around to the ones that interest you most:
- The legend of Ōiko’s stone
- The Gathering 2025
- Ohio Stones of Strength competition
- Historic stone discoveries
- Donald Dinnie Day 2024 videos
- Jan Todd in The New York Times
The legend of Ōiko’s stone
After watching Sean Urquhart lifting power stones in Japan and travelling there vicariously through other friends sharing their trip photos, I felt the itch to return. I'm not sure when that's going to happen, but it got me reminiscing over my trip from two years ago and inspired me to write.
Instead of letting that inspiration fade to focus on other work, I decided to capture it and run with it. And I'm glad I did. It's been fun putting this story together, though a lot more difficult than I expected.
Like I alluded to, today's article is about a stonelifting legend you've almost certainly never heard of, and if you haven't guessed already, it's about a Japanese stonelifting legend. Her name is Ōiko.
Ōiko was a rice farmer and folk hero from around the 12th century, and she used her extraordinary strength to move a massive stone to settle a dispute. Legend says that the stone still sits in her hometown, so I went to visit.
Ōiko has a second legend that I didn't want to skip – I've recounted it at the end of the article, it's unrelated to stonelifting, but it feels like a shame not to include it.
The Gathering 2025
With just over two months to go until this year's Donald Dinnie Day in Potarch, Stevie Shanks has been going live on Instagram to share stories and information about this year's event and its competitions. You can watch the first episode is here.
One of the exciting things Stevie mentioned was the introduction of some stonelifting activities for attendees, so I'm looking forward to seeing that.
Like in previous years, Levi & Claire at Smash and Pass are creating T-Shirts for the day, with sales going towards T-Shirts for competitors, Dinnie Stone lifters, organizers, and volunteers! This year's tee features a cool white-on-purple colourscheme.
The draft schedule for this year's event is also now live on thedinniestones.com, where you can see the athletes and events for both the Donald Dinnie Games and the Jan Todd games. Competition events feature some returning challenges along with a few new events which will be exciting to see.
On the athlete side, Sebastien Louvel will return to defend his Donald Dinnie Games title, while the Jann Todd Games will have a new champion because Hannah Linzay sadly won't be competing this year.
The ninth edition of Donald Dinnie Day The Gathering starts on Sunday the 3rd of August at 12:00 in Potarch. It's free to attend and doesn't require a ticket.
Ohio Stones of Strength competition
On the other side of the Atlantic, Ohio Stones of Strength will host a stonelifting competition at the Dublin Irish Festival on Friday August 1st.
The four-event competition will feature stone throwing, stone pressing, stone to shoulder, and Atlas Stones over a bar. Athlete applications for both the men's and women's classes are open until June 9th, so if you're interested in competing, you should apply.
Or, if you'd like to attend the festival and watch the competition, tickets are available to buy online or on the day.
Historic stone discoveries
There have been at least two historic lifting stone discoveries since the last newsletter.
In Scotland, Jamie Gorrian rediscovered a Scottish putting stone called McCrombie's Putting Stone, weighing in at over 16kg (35.5 lb). For some context, a standard men's shotput weighs 7.26kg (16 lb)!
Jamie became the first person to throw the stone since 2008, on his birthday no less! The last known throw was also filmed: Gregor Edmunds threw it 27 feet 8 inches in 2008 for a televised Highland Games competition called the Highlander Challenge.
Next, Calum Stott received a tip-off on a lifting stone on the Welsh border in the village of Mainstone, which took its name from the Maen Stone, a 90kg (200 lb) lifting stone with a long history.
Calum wrote "The tradition has it that it was lifted by the young men of the parish as a test of strength, other stories that it was thrown over the nearby beck to win the love of a maiden. Or that a giant threw the stone at a man from the village who stole his geese." and that the lift is to "lift upto the height of the face, then casting it over the left shoulder."
Lifting a stone to the shoulder and then casting it behind you is a rare style of lift, so this is a cool stone indeed.
I recommend reading through both Instagram posts for all the details and photos, they're both amazing finds!
Donald Dinnie Day 2024 videos
At the 2024 Donald Dinnie Day, a production team filmed the whole event. The original intention was to livestream the event on OfficialStrongman.com, but lack of Internet availability in Potarch made the livestream a non-starter.
It's been a while, but OfficialStrongman.com's YouTube channel uploaded a video from the day showing the first events of the men's and women's competitions as well as some Dinnie Stones attempts.
Hopefully, they'll upload the rest of the events and lift attempts in future videos.
Jan Todd in The New York Times
Amongst stonelifters, Jan Todd is best known for being the first woman to lift the Dinnie Stones, but far too few people know about her long list of achievements and extraordinary academic work that have shaped and preserved strength sports over the last 50 years.
Just a few days ago, The New York Times published a wonderful feature of Jan Todd that also featured as Monday's "The Great Read", and I highly recommend you take the time to read it.
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Dinnie Stones enamel pin
Inspired by the world’s most famous lifting stones, this liftingstones.org original pin is perfect for showing off your love of stonelifting by pinning it to your gym bag, clothes, or anywhere else.