Is it possible that the 2024 slow smoking is the season of big comebacks? In May former world record holder Igor Kovacic lived up to his nickname, “The Swedish Tiger”; when he returned to the stage after a couple of years hiatus with a bang. With 3 hours 21 minutes and 46 seconds he took straight to the top of the Top 20 list of this season. Since then he’s only been surpassed by Germany’s Hauke Walter, Kazakhstan’s Anastasya Arsenova and now, two-time world champion, Oleg Pedan.
Pedan, who has the 6th best time of all times at 3 hours 26 minutes and 46 seconds, made his return at the Belarusian Cigar Smoking World Championship qualifier in Minsk in the beginning of July, and CSWC calls it “one of the biggest comebacks of all time”. In fact, if he hadn’t received a 15 minute penalty for burning the ring, he would’ve beaten his old record by almost 14 minutes and had the best time of the season so far. Instead he had to “settle” with 3 hours 25 minutes and 9 seconds and a second place on the 2024 Top 20 list, ten minutes behind Hauke Walter and three and a half minutes ahead of Kovacic in fourth place. The win was undoubtedly one of the more convincing of the season, even though the runners-up, Anton Lashkov and Anastasia Leonitova, both performed really well, making it well beyond the two-hour mark.
And one thing is certain, Hauke Walter, Henrik Kristensson, Klaudia Ide, Drew Emch and the others have not just one, but two new contenders to watch out for this year.
Noteworthy is that last year’s runner-up at the grand final in Split, Andrej Leontijev, only finished fifth due to construction problems with his cigar.
- Oleg Pedan 3:25:09
- Anton Lashkov 2:14:01
- Anastasia Leonitova 2:13:22
