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| Born | December 20, 1971 Sainte-Anne-de-Portneuf, Quebec, Canada | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Strongman | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Hugo Girard (born December 20, 1971) is a Canadian former strongman. He is a Strongman Super Series world Champion, a four-time World Muscle Power champion and a six-time Canada's Strongest Man. With 15 international competition wins, he's the eighth most decorated strongman in history. [1]
Prior to his career as a strongman competitor, Girard worked as a bouncer in a popular Quebec City nightclub on weekends while attending community college. In the early 1990s, he went to Los Angeles in order to either pursue a career as a professional bodybuilder or as an actor. After a few months, Girard came back to the province of Quebec where he was later hired as a police officer for the city of Gatineau.
Girard focused on Strongman competition, and became a 6-time consecutive finalist in the World's Strongest Man competition from 1998-2004. Girard's highest placing was 4th place at the 1999 World's Strongest Man contest. [2]
In 2002 Girard reached the high point of his career to date, winning the 2002 Strongman Super Series overall title. Girard has also won the World Muscle Power Championships 4 times, in 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2004.
Girard dominated strongman competition in Canada for several years. He was the Canada's Strongest Man champion from 1999 to 2004. He was also the North America's Strongest Man champion in 2001 and 2002.
Beginning in 2004, injuries began to plague his career including back to back injuries to his achilles tendon in 2005, the first of which took place at the 2005 Arnold Strongman Classic forcing him to retire from the contest. [3] These injuries required a long period of rehabilitation, and nearly a year and a half to fully recover. At one point Girard was in a cast up to his waist. [4] Girard's comeback took place at the 2006 Mohegan Sun Super Series event. After winning the first event, he tore his patellar tendon in the second event, the Conan's Wheel and was forced to retire from the contest. [5] He attempted to compete in the North America's Strongest Man Competition in 2007, but withdrew due to injury. Girard was able to bounce back in 2008, winning Quebec's Strongest Man. [6] This win qualified Girard for the 2008 Canada's Strongest Man contest. Girard was leading the contest after the first day, but suffered yet another injury on the second day of competition and tearfully announced his retirement from strongman competition. [7]
Girard broke several records during his career, some of which are still standing today. He has held records in events such as the log press, apollon's axle press, crucifix hold, farmer's walk Atlas stones, bench press, truck pull and squat. He has also pulled an 80-ton Boeing 737 for a short distance.
Due to his strength, Girard is often compared to fellow Quebec native Louis Cyr, a dominant nineteenth-century strongman who was considered the strongest man in history at the turn of the century. Girard has trained several other strongmen in the Ottawa and Gatineau regions, including Travis Lyndon and Jessen Paulin, who has participated in the World's Strongest Man competition and succeeded Girard as Canada's Strongest Man in 2005 and 2006.
Girard is currently a member of the organization of the Gatineau Hot Air Balloon Festival that takes place every Labour Day weekend. He is also the current president of the Canadian Federation of Strength Athletes. In addition to his career as a strongman, Girard served as a police officer for 12 years.
Girard was the subject of a documentary film called "Strongman: Hugo Girard" in 2002. The film shows Girard's training for the 2002 North America's Strongest Man competition, which he eventually won. The film also features his training partners Jessen Paulin and Travis Lyndon. The film was directed by Alan Black and released by Top of the World Films. [8]
Louis Cyr was a Canadian strongman with a career spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His recorded feats, including lifting 500 pounds (227 kg) with one finger and backlifting 4,337 pounds (1,967 kg)(2 tons), show Cyr to be, according to former International Federation of BodyBuilding and Fitness chairman Ben Weider as stated in 2000, the strongest man ever.
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.
The International Federation of Strength Athletes was an international governing body for strongman competition. IFSA operated from 1995 to 2007 and was based in Glasgow, Scotland.
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.
Jessen Paulin is a Canadian Strongman. A resident of Gatineau, Quebec, Paulin is known for being a multiple-Quebec's Strongest Man champion and a two-time Canada's Strongest Man in 2005 and 2006 succeeding, multiple-time champion and former World Champion Hugo Girard who was in rehabilitation following a surgery on an injured foot. In 2007, he was crowned the North America's Strongest Man, an event that featured six Canadian and six American strongman athletes. Jessen won this title again in 2008.
Nick Best is an American professional strongman competitor and world champion powerlifter.
Manfred Hoeberl is an Austrian former strongman and powerlifter who was known as having the largest arms in the world during the early-mid 1990s. Hoeberl was born in the same town as bodybuilding legend and former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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.
The Beauty and The Beast Strongman Challenge, also known as the Beauty and The Beast World Strongman Challenge was a short-lived annual strongman competition that was notable for the calibre of the entrants it attracted, as well as for the reputation it attained in a short amount of time.
Brian Shaw is an American 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 26 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.
Louis-Phillipe Jean is a Canadian strongman competitor and entrant to the World's Strongest Man competition on multiple occasions.
Gerrit Badenhorst is a former WPC world champion powerlifter and professional strongman competitor from South Africa.
Mark Philippi is an American world champion powerlifter and strongman competitor. Philippi is a multiple entrant to the World's Strongest Man competition, and former holder of the America's Strongest Man title.
Strength athletics in Canada refers to the various strongman events throughout Canada and its provinces in the sport of [strength athletics] in association with the World's Strongest Man. The roots of strongman in Canada go back long before the birth of WSM in 1977, particularly with [Louis Cyr] in the early 1900s, who was deemed the "Strongest Man on Earth" during his lifetime. Four Canadian athletes have finished on the podium, placing 2nd in 1982 with Tom Magee and 3rd in 2005 with Dominic Filiou, Jean-François Caron placing 3rd in 2020, and Maxime Boudreault placing 3rd in 2021. The provinces of Canada hold annual championships with the top 2-4 athletes going on to the National Championships at the end of the year to crown Canada's Strongest Man. Mitchell “Moose” Hooper's win in WSM 2023 makes him the first Canadian to finish in first place.
Strength athletics in the United States refers to the various strongman events throughout United States and North America in the sport of strength athletics in association with the World's Strongest Man ("WSM") contest. America has both an amateur and a professional sanctioning body.
Christian Savoie is a leading Canadian strongman competitor and entrant to the World's Strongest Man competition on multiple occasions.
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.
Luke Skaarup is a professional engineer and also a retired professional strongman from Canada who competed actively in the sport of strongman from 2007 to 2015. During his competitive career, he held many records, most notably the Canadian record for heaviest atlas stone ever lifted in competition, the Ontario record for heaviest deadlift, and the Ontario Record heaviest dumbbell press. He competed in over sixty competitions with his top placings being the 2 x Ontario's Strongest Man Champion, 4th at North America's Strongest Man (2014), and 8th at the World Amateur Strongman Championships (2012).
The World Log Lift Championships is an annual competition featuring strength athletes from all over the world, competing exclusively in the log clean and press. Created initially as part of the Strongman Champions League, it has since been part of Giants Live and the championship occasionally switches between the two series.
