Anantapur: Asia's strongest man exhibits breathtaking feats

Gooty (Anantapur): Manoj Chopra, 14-time Asia's strongest man and who also stands 14th in world rank, created world record by breaking 21 12mm iron rods in 15 seconds and tearing 800 pages directory in 20 seconds, blowing rubber hot water bag and converting it into balloon, breaking base ball, and breaking beer bottles into two pieces.

Also rolling tawa pan into multiple folds, breaking wrench into two pieces and screw driver into O shape are some of the feats he performed at the Smart Life Gym here on Tuesday.

Born in 1970 in Raipur, he has been ranked as world's 14th strongest man and got his name registered in Guinness Book of World Record. Out of love, people described him as 'Hercules', 'Genial Giant', 'Modern Bheem' and 'Strongest He-man.' He completed B.A. (Honours) from Raipur, Chhattisgarh. He used to be very active in sports during his school days.

Manoj Chopra became popular after the strongman competition which was held in 2004 when he became the first Indian to participate in the show hosted in Canada. Currently, he is associated with Power Team India and has been conducting power feat exhibitions in India and internationally delivering motivational speeches.

The journey to attain the strongman title began while flipping between the channels and his attention was drawn to the World's Strongest Man competition. He noticed that there was no one to represent India and that was the day when he dreamt of becoming the World's Strongest Man.

"The show changed his mind completely and he desired to represent his country flag in that competition. He worked very hard for achieving it and joined the gym. After his body came to the shape, he participated in India's Strongest Man Competition held in Chennai. Later on, he went for the Asia Strongest Man Competition where he won the title of his name. This made him eligible for the World Strongest Man in Canada where he was ranked number 14.

Guntakal MLA Y Venkatarami Reddy, Dr M Virupaksha Reddy, president of Gooty Kota Parirakshana Samithi, G Venkata Reddy, senior advocate, Dr M Pavan Kumar Reddy, noted dermatologist and several others felicitated him.