He dreamed of being a trucker, seeing the whole country. He became… a corrections officer. Life had other plans for him than he had for himself. He started training sports when he was 8, he has been in armwrestling for 26 years now.

I've been Armwrestling since 1988. It started when I was working in jail, and met Sargeant, Joe Leonardis, who was a weightlifter, and an armwrestler. He won 5 world titles in the early 1970s. I had stopped competing at bodybuilding, and Joe said I should try armwrestling.

Chris first chose right hand…

I’ve never trained for armwrestling before, just weightlifting. So the beginnings were painful – says Chris, laughing.

Binnie switched to left hand in 1995, after some problems with the right.

That’s when I won my first tournament, two years later I stared working out seriously, after Jason Vale invited me for training – recalls Chris. – When I entered in the Harley Pull 2001 and beat the World Champion of that time, Earl Wilson, I thought to myself that I might actually be good at this.

The 2001 Harley Pull was Chris’s first success, although he placed 5^th. In 2002 he returned to beat Eric Woefel 3 times in one day; that day Travis Bagent placed 5^th, there was so much talent present.

Looking back I see myself as a good fighter, not very technical, but strong – says Binnie. – I was taken down by injuries, the first one back in 1997, when I broke my left arm. My moment of pride was definitely in 2004, when the Nationals were filmed by ESPN. My fight with Travis Bagent was filmed, our weight class was shown over a 100 times in the whole USA, it put armwrestling back in the mainstream. In 2005 PAL asked me to fight Alexey Semerenko, but it didn’t work in the end. After the Nationals me, Pete Milano and James Retarides got Travis Bagent to fight Jerry Cadorette for 10 000 $. This was the beginning of the superfights that got popular all over the States and overseas.

As his life’s biggest achievements, Chris names his children – Dario, Sophie-Rose and James, who’s to be born this April.

In the future I see myself way shorter, than I’d like to be – says Chris, laughing. – But seriously, after the 2009 – 2013 break I still feel strong, I’ve wised up, both at the table and at the gym, although that wasn’t apparent at the Nemiroff 2013. In 2014 I want to avoid injury, fight more and get back to Nemiroff, to show that I belong at the podium!

Iza Małkowska