Shamil Gimaev: “I want my son to say: “Titan is my dad!”

This season, participants of the show “Titans” on TNT can add “challenged artificial intelligence” to the number of their achievements. Millionaire sports blogger Shamil Gimaev (Shoma Tos) on the TV project competes not only with Olympic champions, idols and his comrades, he competes with himself. About the Titans, the limitations, the challenges of the show and his rivals – in our interview.

Shamil Gimaev – Russian kickboxing champion, winner of the World Cup, European Cup, bronze medalist of the World Championship and Master of Sports International Class in strict biceps lifting, participant of the project “Titans” on TNT, blogger, ticktocker. Gained popularity thanks to the videos in which he combines sports and cosplays anime characters. The young man is not just reincarnated, in bright costumes, he goes to training, performs exercises and competes with other athletes. The audience on TikTok is already more than 3.6 million.

“I couldn’t help but become an athlete.”

sports blogger, Titans contestant

“I’ve always had a passion for sports. My dad is the USSR master of sports in boxing, and my older brothers are Russian masters of sports in boxing, so I just couldn’t help but become an athlete.”

Initially, I didn’t want to show my face when making the videos, and that’s where cosplay came in. As for the symbiosis of sports and anime characters that I created, it was just a matter of not wanting to shoot dancing in character. I already look weird wearing costumes. In addition, after analyzing the site, I realized that there is only cosplay, only sports, and it’s all separate.Then I realized that it is worth combining it.

Ideas for the videos are mostly taken from my head, but there are also borrowed from colleagues, in such a situation I adapt them to myself. I won’t say that I’m the most creative or the coolest blogger. I just try to add value to the content besides “fast food”. So each video is good in its own way, you can’t even single out one.

“I’m not in favor of diets and restrictions”

Many colleagues do not understand me, because I am not a supporter of diets and restrictions. So my rules are very concise: train, sleep and eat what feels good. Your body will thank you.

Before my son was born, I used to train every day. Now it is more difficult, of course, but I try to go to the gym every other day. Training is more focused on the development of local skills in armwrestling, as I plan to try my hand at it. So I moved away from martial arts and from general iron work.

Of course, I don’t forget about strict biceps lifting, yes, I did the MSMK, but there is also a world record to break. Why not?

Now the priorities are set like this, but when I was competing in a narrow discipline (strict biceps lift), the training process was limited to local elements. Plus at that time I turned for help to the legendary Nizami Tagiev, who is a world record holder in this direction, he prepares me for different competitions, especially when the question of international tournaments comes up.

“I want to win a big armfight.”

As for strict biceps lifting, I have a desire to set a world record at the 10th World Championships in my home country in December 2024. I also want to win a major armwrestling armfight, this discipline is very difficult in terms of technical equipment, but I am gradually going in this direction. Thanks to my team “MosArm” represented by Vasily Sorokin, Vladislav Tsvilyov and Maxim Paseka, who train me and are always on guard of my ligaments (laughs).

I’ve long ago quit martial arts in terms of performances. Of course, if a very cool offer comes, maybe I would fight, but for now it’s at the lowest level of my goals. And don’t forget that I’m always open to Medialiga at least in soccer or cybersports, basketball is especially appealing to me.

“It was impossible to prepare for the Titans.”

I was never afraid of the filming process, on the contrary, only motivation and the desire to rip and throw appeared. To compare the projects “Arena of Heroes”, “Russian Ninja” and “Titans” I have a bad way, they are completely different, but the experience of shooting on TV has definitely pumped my skill of calmness. Because sometimes the process took both 15 and 18 hours. It was hard for many people to take at first, but guys with experience were humbled, including me.

In preparation, at first we emphasized heavy work with weights, based on the name, but also did not forget about dexterity and functionality, which helped in fact. Because the first tests were not for strength (laughs). But of course, it was impossible to prepare in a targeted way, because the AI was making everything up, and here you can’t guess. Every time the athletes and I made bets on what would happen, and we never guessed.

The presence of artificial intelligence caused bewilderment, because we are all used to seeing presenters, alive and beautiful, and here a voice from nowhere. But with time we got used to it, and it seemed even something mesmerizing.

“I wanted to get to know everyone at once

When I saw the arena and the participants for the first time, I was delighted. Standing shoulder to shoulder with famous athletes of our country is very exciting at the start and insanely motivating in the process. Especially when I saw Olympic champions and my childhood idols, such as Denis Lebedev.

For the first hour I had a smile on my face, and then I slowly started to analyze each one, looking at their competition experience, strengths and weaknesses, just to have it in my head.

When you see the most famous athletes of the country in front of you, people who have achieved greatness for our country with sweat and blood, your first thought is, “Well…What do we do now?” (laughs) But just a moment – and already cold calculation took over.

I was glad to see my close friends – Jan Popizhansky and Roman Tersky. We were not allowed to say that we were participants, and nobody knew about each other, and there we met. I was very pleasantly surprised and infinitely happy to share the arena with them. I was well aware that there might be team trials, and I hoped to pass them shoulder to shoulder with my brave comrades.

I wanted to meet everyone at once, but there were so many people that it was physically impossible. We are sportsmen, intrigue is not for us, so everyone became friends. Of course, there were some interesting clashes, but they were over quickly. We are colleagues and we do one common thing.

“I gritted my teeth, I was screaming inside, but I made it to the final point.”

Physically difficult so far was nothing inherently difficult, the difficulty lay in another – after the first test, almost everyone injured their nerve endings in their hands, except for the gymnasts, of course. And passing the further stages became difficult. I couldn’t even hold a mug with my right hand, and there were rings in the second test. So I, in order not to fall into the water like a sack, immediately let go of the last ring and hung on two to try to at least swing. On one arm I just couldn’t hold on.

Dethird challenge was dramatic in general: I was left one-on-one with a marathon runner, and he started running around a wall that you couldn’t jump over. I ended up running after him for a minute and ran out of breath, unable to keep up with his pace. Of course, then after Jan Popizhanski shouted: “Brother! Did you come here to surrender? No! You came here to win!” the berserk version of me woke up, I don’t even remember how, but in some half-jumps I grabbed my opponent and threw him on the sand. I still don’t remember how I got the ball, I was in a state of affect.

Defourth test caused difficulties only because we were in the first group and there were a lot of restrictions, you could not hang on the rope, clamp it with your neck, so I held it purely by the strength of my forearms and hands and became second in the subgroup. Then the rules were relaxed a little bit, and the same girls could hang with all their weight on the ropes, and the average holding time immediately increased from 12 minutes to 25+ (laughs), but I’m glad that I took my 11 minutes on character. The prize for the loudest scream is definitely mine.

Well, the fifth episode is the most awesome so far, as it was the first time I worked with a big team and took on the nastiest challenge, due to hand injuries for all of us. Those thin bars of the grid ended up tearing my fingers, the grip threatened to fly off every time. The enormous responsibility to the guys, which I felt for the first time (because all my life I have been doing disciplines where I am alone or one-on-one), did not give me a second to think that I could give up. I gritted my teeth, I was screaming inside, but I made it to the final point. Provided that I am afraid of heights – it was very cool for me to close this gestalt. But next… Next, you’ll all go crazy with the hardcore nature of the challenge, get ready!

“On the project, I have one goal – to win.”

Answering the question “Would I repeat this experience?”: unequivocally – yes, yes and yes again! Already saw the news that the second season is being prepared – TNT, you know my numbers. I also heard about the new project “Games Without Borders”, I really wanted to get there, but apparently they found better candidates (laughs).

And the Titans will forever remain in my heart.

It’s an insanely cool experience, the best people, grandiose scale and a huge amount of empathy, which is very important. The project gave me the opportunity to dive back into a period of competitive life. I opened a long-forgotten door, overgrown with vines, behind which sat a moss-covered 2015-2019 Shamil, hungry for competition. I tidied him up, let him out into the world and in symbiosis we set the heat (laughs).

On the project I have one goal – to win. So that in 10 years, when my son goes to the fourth grade and will study the history of Ancient Greece, in the paragraph “mythology” in the column “Titans” he will stand up and say: “No, it’s a lie! Titans don’t look like that!” He’ll take out his phone, show me a picture of me and say, “That’s my daddy!”