☀️ Arselia and Akonia

As far as she knows, this is Laikos's first public performance, so backstage, she quickly whispers words of encouragement to him: "Just like in rehearsals, you did great, pay attention, be careful, be focused, you're doing well!"

When his turn came, Laikos, unaccustomed to such close attention from the audience, became very nervous, but Beata's words filled him with the missing drops of courage. As she taught him, he walked closer to the center of the arena to maintain a safe distance between himself and the audience and to be more visible; he also paid close attention to where everything was and where his hands and feet were, so that Anuzish wouldn't repeat the Kreon incident. First, he demonstrated his strength to the audience by working with a monstrous weight. Although some observers doubted that the weight of the weights was "real," the weightlifter was not embarrassed and continued the performance according to Beata's instructions: first, he took a thick and long bar in his hands and carefully tossed it high into the air, then caught it; he took one such bar in each hand, tossed them up again, and caught them again; to the horror of the audience, he took a third bar and began to juggle them; but it was too early to be surprised - the next stage was that he stood on a pyramid built of chairs and repeated everything. - "Wow!" - "Amazing!" An unexpected consequence of this performance was that some of the audience ran onto the stage to check the authenticity of the strongman's equipment. Having confirmed that their suspicions were incorrect, they were about to leave, but Laikos offered them to participate in his performance - the visitors sat on several chairs, and to everyone's amazement, he lifted them all at the same time.