In the 19th century, the term strongman referred to an exhibitor of strength or similar circus performers who performed feats of strength. Today, strength athletics, also known as strongman competitions, are composed of a variety of events in which competitors have to move the highest weights possible, the winner being the one having the highest tally across all events.
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.
Jamie Reeves is a British former coal miner, strongman and professional wrestler. As a strongman, he won the 1989 World's Strongest Man, was World Muscle Power champion, and also had numerous other titles including Europe's Strongest Man and Britain's Strongest Man. Following retirement from competitive sport he continued to be involved in strength athletics as a referee, event promoter and coach.
Britain's Strongest Man is an annual strongman event held in the United Kingdom. Competitors qualify for the final through regional heats and the winner is awarded the title of "Britain's Strongest Man". The competition is produced by TWI and serves as a qualifying event for the World's Strongest Man ("WSM") competition, also a TWI production.
Nick Best is an American professional strongman competitor and world champion powerlifter.
Strength athletics in the United Kingdom and Ireland has a long history going back many centuries before the televisation of strongman competitions in the 1970s. The ancient heritage of the sport in the United Kingdom and Ireland lies in a number of traditional events, the most famous of which is arguably the traditional Highland Games, which itself is a source of many events now practised in modern strongman competitions, such as World's Strongest Man and International Federation of Strength Athletes (IFSA) sponsored events. However, the traditional events still are popularly contested events today. In the more modern phenomenon that is the World's Strongest Man and its associated competitions, the United Kingdom and Ireland remain well represented with Glenn Ross, Terry Hollands, Eddie Hall and John Ryan Cappalahan, with regular appearances at world finals, and with three men having won the title of World's Strongest Man, as well as Shane Davis Cappalahan appearing in eight final events.
The Strongman Champions League is a strongman competition circuit, with several Grand Prix events throughout the year and the Strongman Champions League overall champion title going to the overall winner at the end of the season. The competitors include some of the top athletes in the sport, including Žydrūnas Savickas, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, Krzysztof Radzikowski, Aivars Šmaukstelis, Mikhail Koklyaev, Ervin Katona, Andrus Murumets, Nick Best, Travis Ortmayer, Vytautas Lalas, Laurence Shahlaei and Terry Hollands. Initially in close partnership with IFSA, it quickly asserted its independence and has acted as a unifying force in the world of strength athletics, bringing together athletes from IFSA with those affiliated to the World's Strongest Man circuit, and having close cooperation with other major events such as Fortissimus. In 2012, SCL began co-promoting the new Arnold Strongman Classic-Europe contest which will become part of the annual SCL season of events.
The World Strongman Cup Federation ("WSCF") was a worldwide organisation within strength athletics that claimed to be the sport's organising body with the aim of making "the Strongman Sport more popular and accessible for a wide range of the people." Its motto was "be strong". It was also a charity. The Federation organised the World Strongman Cup one of the main competitions in the field of strength athletics boasting participation from some of the foremost strongmen around the globe. It was a separate competition from the World's Strongest Man, the Strongman Super Series and the IFSA World Championship). It has since been replaced by the World Strongman Federation's World Cup.
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. With 9 wins, Iceland's Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson is the greatest Giants Live champion of all-time.
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.
Tarmo Mitt is an Estonian professional strongman competitor and regular entrant to the World's Strongest Man competition. He was a finalist, finishing inside the top ten, in four consecutive years from 2005 to 2008.
Raivis Vidzis is a leading international strongman competitor, former two-time holder of the World Strongman Cup title and repeat entrant to the World's Strongest Man. Now retired from strongman, Raivis currently competes in Mixed Martial Arts.
Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, is an Icelandic professional strongman who is widely regarded as one of the greatest strength athletes of all time. He is the first and only person to have won the Arnold Strongman Classic, the Europe's Strongest Man, and the World's Strongest Man competitions in the same calendar year and holds numerous Strongman titles from multiple strength federations, including multiple world records. With 30 international competition wins, he is the third most decorated strongman in history, behind Lithuania's Žydrūnas Savickas and Poland's Mariusz Pudzianowski, and in terms of pure brute strength, many strength analysts and strongman experts regard Hafþór as "the strongest man to have ever lived".
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.
Oleksandr Lashyn is a professional strongman competitor from Ukraine. Olkesandr competes regularly in the WSF World Cup as well as the WSF World Team Cup, and has also competed in Strongman Champions League. Lashyn also won Ukraine's Strongest Man 6 times in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015 and placed third at the 2008 World Log Lift Championships.
Bodybuilding in India is organized and the national federation is internationally recognised. Bodybuilders from the country have competed in international events.
The 2019 World's Ultimate Strongman took place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates between October 24th and 25th. The winner of the inaugural World's Ultimate Strongman Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson did not partake this year due to taking a small break from competing. 2019 World's Strongest Man Martins Licis also did not partake due to injury. The competition had four-time World's Strongest Man Žydrūnas Savickas as a referee; 2017 World's Strongest Man Eddie Hall and 2016 Europe's Strongest Man Laurence Shahlaei were commentators of the event.
Jarno Antero Jokinen is a competitive Strongman from Finland.
