The Luxembourger is one of the strongest men in the world: he has 26 entries in the Guinness Book of Records. In a few seconds he tears up phone books or bends thick nails. And is a vegetarian.
Luxembourg – To start, Georges Christen takes a frying pan. He grabs them by the edges with both hands and rolls them up piece by piece inwards. It doesn’t take ten seconds, then he beams and holds up the silver pan roll by the black handle.
Then he grabs a seven millimeter thick nail and bends it into a large V. And finally he tears up a 1,250-page phone book: first in two, then in four parts.
“These are my favorite exercises,” says Christen in his training barn between dumbbells, stone balls, bent flat bars and a suitcase with medals and Guinness World Records. The 59-year-old made 26 entries – because of his world records, the Luxembourger is also considered one of the strongest men in the world.
But he doesn’t see himself as a bodybuilder or weightlifter. But rather as a strength athlete of old tradition, who uses his power muscles for variety shows for entertainment. These “strongmen” were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “I revived this old variety genre. I think the term Old Time Strongman suits me best.”
Spectacular belongs to the genre – and thus to Christians. “I love weird and wacky things,” he says. Also with his teeth, which he has been training vigorously for years. He has bite: “I pulled a railway wagon weighing more than 20 tons 200 meters with my teeth,” he says. Or holding Cessna light aircraft (110 hp) at full throttle with your teeth. “And then all sorts of other things pulled with the teeth: buses, ships, tractors.”
How it works? He has a special rubber mouthpiece that he attaches to ropes attached to the vehicles. “I’ve always loved lifting weights with my teeth,” he says. What he still likes to do today is to hold a table with his teeth on which a woman from the audience is sitting. “And then I’ll go around in circles.” With that, he had already appeared in China at the “Wetten, dass..?” there. “And become a betting king.”
Christen was not stronger than others as a child. “I would even say that I was maybe a bit more anxious than other children.” But he was fascinated by strength – and by the Luxembourgish athlete John Grün (1868-1912), who was described as the strongest man in the world at the time would. Christen began exercising with home-made barbells made from junkyard iron. “And then I really wanted to get into the Guinness Book of Records. Back then it was like the show “Supertalent” is today.”
At the end of 1982 the time had come. He bent 250 carpenter’s nails in just under 73 minutes – and ended up in the book of records. “And then the crazy things happened,” he says. Blow up hot water bottles until they burst, or tear up a deck of playing cards. “There’s no magic trick involved. It’s always just strength and technique.” A large part of his strength lies in his forearms.
Actually, he trained as an insurance salesman. But at some point he thought: “I’ll make this my job.” There were more and more inquiries, more and more appearances. From theatres, festivals, companies or banks. Before Corona, there were around 100 performances every year. “I haven’t performed in every country, but in every continent.” He is not planning new world records at the moment.
Christen isn’t someone who eats steak after a hard workout. He has been a vegetarian for 36 years. “Weight training is also possible as a vegetarian,” he says. He decided to do it “for ethical reasons” because he is against factory farming. But he eats dairy products and eggs – just not animals. “I’m fine with that. If I was missing something, I didn’t notice it.”
According to the German Record Institute (RID), Christian’s list of records is “indeed impressive”, also given the nature of his records. “As far as the number of recognized records is concerned, Georges is good with his 26 successful world record attempts, but not completely unique,” said the Managing Director of RID, Olafkuchenbecker, in Hamburg. The RID is the German-language counterpart to the internationally oriented Guinness Book of Records in London.
Christen trains five times a week for himself, usually for two hours each time – with dumbbells, weights and exercises. He also passes on his enthusiasm for sport to the homeless in a Caritas project in Luxembourg – ten hours a week. “It’s not about records, it’s about perseverance and discipline.”
Christen also has his partner to thank for his job. “She’s not an athlete at all,” he says. But she sat in the audience and came on stage as a volunteer for his interlude with the table between her teeth. “Then she sat on the table. And now we have been together for 27 years.” dpa
