The World's Strongest Man is an international strongman competition held every year. Organized by American event management company IMG, a subsidiary of Endeavor, it is broadcast in the US during summers and in the UK around the end of December each year. Competitors qualify based on placing in the top three at the four to eight Giants Live events each year. The current event sponsor is SBD Apparel. Previous sponsors include Tachi Palace, Coregenx, Commerce Hotel and Casino, DAF Trucks, Tonka, MET-Rx, and PartyPoker.com.
Žydrūnas Savickas is a Lithuanian powerlifter and professional strongman. Due to his 84 international wins in major international strongman competitions including four World's Strongest Man championships, eight Arnold Strongman Classic championships, two IFSA Strongman World Championships, and over 70 world records, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest strength athletes of all time.
Glenn Ross known by his nickname "The Daddy", is a Northern Ireland former International Strongman and Powerlifter who has represented Northern Ireland and the UK in several World's Strongest Man competitions and various World Grand Prix and European Team competitions. Ross is the founder of the UK Strength Council and Scotland Strength Association and creator of the UK's Strongest Man competition as well as several regional and national qualifying events.
Vasyl Virastyuk, is a Ukrainian politician and former strongman competitor. He is a brother of Roman Virastyuk. Virastyuk was the winner of World's Strongest Man 2004. In a 28 March 2021 parliamentary by-election, Virastyuk was a candidate for Servant of the People. On 15 June 2021, he was sworn in as a member of the Ukrainian parliament.
Travis Ortmayer is an American professional Strongman athlete from Cypress, Texas. He is nicknamed the Texas Stoneman due to his many world records in the Atlas Stone event.
Mark Felix is a Grenadian-English strongman competitor and regular entrant to the World's Strongest Man competition. He has competed at a record 18 World's Strongest Man contests, reaching the finals three times. He is the winner of the 2015 Ultimate Strongman Masters World Championships, 2016 WSF World Cup India and has won numerous international grip contests, including the Rolling Thunder World Championships in 2008 and 2009, as well as the Vice Grip Viking Challenge in 2011 and 2012. Having competed in over 100 international competitions throughout 19 years, Felix is the 3rd most prolific strongman contestant in history.
The Arnold Strongman Classic is an annual competition featuring strength athletes from all over the world, determining who is the Strongest Man in the World. Created by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Lorimer and Terry Todd, it is an offshoot of the Arnold Sports Festival which takes place annually in Columbus, Ohio, USA.
The Fortissimus is a defunct event in strength athletics. The name means "the mightiest" and was a multi-event challenge at the end of which the winner is crowned as the "Strongest Man on Earth". It was set up to bring together the strongest competitors on the planet independent of the organisations to which they were signed, and also as a tribute to the nineteenth-century Canadian strongman Louis Cyr, which gave it many similarities to Le Defi Mark Ten International which last took place in Canada in the early 1990s. After its first airing in 2008, the strength athletics magazine Milo described it as the ultimate strongman competition ever held. Despite a successful edition in 2009, a reported lack of a major sponsor for 2010 resulted in the competition being suspended, no future contests have been announced.
Giants Live was created in 2009 as the official Tour that qualifies strongmen to compete in the annual World's Strongest Man contest. At each Grand Prix, up to twelve international strongmen come together and compete over six events. The top three at each contest will receive an invitation to compete at the World's Strongest Man contest for that same year.
The World's Strongest Man 2009 was the 32nd edition of World's Strongest Man and took place in Valletta, Malta from 26 September to 3 October 2009. It was sponsored by PartyPoker.com. It was anticipated by the strength athletics world as promising to be "the best one yet." The anticipation was based on the organisers ensuring invites were made to "every top athlete in the world" regardless of their affiliation to any particular strength athletics body. In previous years, the schism between the International Federation of Strength Athletes and the organisers of WSM had meant that certain athletes were forbidden to compete, undermining the credentials of the competition.
Brian Shaw is an American retired professional strongman who is widely regarded as one of the greatest strength athletes of all-time. He won the 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2016 World's Strongest Man competitions, and in 2011, became the first man to win the Arnold Strongman Classic and the World's Strongest Man competitions in the same calendar year, a feat he replicated in 2015. With 27 international competition wins, he is the fourth most decorated strongman in history behind Lithuania's Žydrūnas Savickas, Poland's Mariusz Pudzianowski and Iceland's Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson.
Ervin Katona is a Serbian strongman competitor and regular entrant to the World's Strongest Man competition. He has competed in 99 International strongman competitions and have won 17 of them, making him the seventh most decorated strongman in history.
The World Strongman Challenge was one of the most enduring annual strongmen competitions, running in various guises for twenty years, with only two years break. In that time it attained the position of one of the most prestigious strongman contest in the world, after the World's Strongest Man and the World Muscle Power Classic. As with its two international counterparts it attracted the top quality strength athletes of its era, which included every winner of the World's Strongest Man competition from 1980 onwards including Jón Páll Sigmarsson, Geoff Capes and Bill Kazmaier from the 1980s right up to the current WSM champion Žydrūnas Savickas.
Vytautas Lalas is a Lithuanian professional strongman. He is most notable for being the winner of the 2013 Arnold Strongman Classic and the runner-up at the 2012 World's Strongest Man.
Mike Jenkins was an American professional strongman competitor from Westminster, Maryland. Jenkins worked as a high school athletics director at Milton Hershey School in Hershey Pa, when not competing as a strongman. He was a college and professional football player before switching over to strongman competition in 2007. He won the Maryland's Strongest Man contest in 2007 which qualified him for the North American amateur national strongman championships later that year and he placed sixth in that contest. He placed second in the North American nationals in 2009.
Matt Wanat is a professional Strongman competitor from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.
Krzysztof Radzikowski is a professional strongman competitor from Głowno, Poland. He has competed in 112 International strongman competitions and has won 23 of them, making him the fifth most decorated strongman in history following Žydrūnas Savickas, Mariusz Pudzianowski, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson and Brian Shaw.
The 2012 World's Strongest Man was the 35th edition of World's Strongest Man. The event was held on the grounds of the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles, California, US. The event was sponsored by MET-Rx. The qualifying heats were held from September 24–27, and the finals took place Sept. 30 & Oct. 1, 2012. The winner was Žydrūnas Savickas, it was his third WSM title. Vytautas Lalas of Lithuania was second, and Iceland's Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson was third.
Martins Licis is a Latvian-American professional strongman, notable for winning 2019 World's Strongest Man, 2022 Arnold Strongman Classic, and 2021 Rogue Invitational strongman championships.
Oleksii Novikov is a Ukrainian professional strongman. He won the 2020 World's Strongest Man competition, becoming the second Ukrainian to win the title since Vasyl Virastyuk in 2004, and at 24 years, 278 days, he is also the second youngest winner in history, being only seven days elder than Jón Páll Sigmarsson in 1984. He is also a two time World's Ultimate Strongman, Rogue Invitational champion and Europe’s Strongest Man.
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