Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson
Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson
26.11.1988 (35 years) (Reykjavík, Iceland)
Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson (Icelandic: [ˈhafθour ˈjuːlijʏs ˈpjœr̥sɔːn] (listen); often transliterated as Hafthor; born 26 November 1988) is an Icelandic professional strongman and actor. He is the first person to have won the Arnold Strongman Classic, Europe's Strongest Man and World's Strongest Man in the same calendar year. He played Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane in the HBO series Game of Thrones for five seasons. He also is a former professional basketball player. Born in Reykjavík, Hafþór began his basketball career in 2004 with Division I team Breiðablik, moving to FSu in 2005. He transferred to Premier League side KR in 2006 before returning to FSu in 2007. He helped FSu to promotion from Division I to the Premier League but his career was cut short in 2008 due to a recurrent ankle injury. He subsequently began his strongman career. Hafþór won the Strongest Man in Iceland event in 2010, and won Iceland's Strongest Man in 2011. He won Europe's Strongest Man in 2014, a feat he repeated in 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2019. He won silver at the 2017 Arnold Strongman Classic, improving to gold in 2018, 2019 and 2020. He competed in his first World's Strongest Man in 2011, placing sixth. He won three bronze and three silver medals in his next six attempts before being crowned champion in 2018.