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.
History The World Strongman Challenge (WMPC) first took place in 1987. It was a third major strongman competition with the previously established World's Strongest Man and World Muscle Power Classic having made the popularity of strongman competitions a huge success. The WSC in fact helped fill a void left in 1987 by the absence of the World's Strongest Man event and it may have even been introduced for these purpose. The event immediately attracted the very best athletes in the field and the final placings in that inaugural 1987 competition saw both Jón Páll Sigmarsson and Geoff Capes on the podium. In 1988, despite the reintroduction of WSM, the WSC continued and unlike many other strongman events of the era, the WSC managed to continue without a break right up until 1998, at no point dipping in the quality of the athletes competing.
Beauty and the Beast
1998 appeared to be its final year, but in 1999, the Beauty and the Beast competition, established in 1998, took on the title of World Strongman Challenge. In so doing, it immediately attracted the cream of international strength athletics once again. For five more years, the Beauty and the Beast produced world class champions but in a mirroring of the decline of the WMPC, the WSC also began to lose status. At around 2001 a Strongman Super Series had emerged, an attempt to heighten the profile of the sport. The IFSA World Strongman Super Series was being heavily promoted in 2002 and Beauty and the Beast formed part of that. In the end, it became simply the Grand Prix Final held on January 17, 2003, finishing off the 2002 season. The very next day, a second Hawaii Grand Prix, again deemed Beauty and the Beast, was held as the opener for the 2003 IFSA World Strongman Super Series. This turned out to be the last holding of the event. Like the World Muscle Power Classic, once the Beauty and the Beast became entangled with the Super Series, it lost its stand alone gravitas and quickly fell from favour. In the tentative schedule for the 2004/05 Super Series there was to have been a November Hawaii Grand Prix, but that season was foreshortened and this did not take place.archive of official site of IFSA super series
IFSA In 2006, IFSA resurrected the World Strongman Challenge holding the event in Tulsa, Oklahoma Žydrūnas Savickas won the event, with Derek Poundstone coming in second and Jon Andersen coming in third. This was the final year that the World Strongman Challenge was held.
Results YearChampionRunner-up3rd placeLocationOriginal 1987/ Geoff Capes Ab Wolders Jón Páll Sigmarsson 1988 Riku Kiri Jón Páll Sigmarsson Bill Kazmaier 1989 / Mark Higgins Magnús Ver Magnússon O.D. Wilson 1990 / Mark Higgins Bill Kazmaier Magnús Ver Magnússon 1991 Riku Kiri O.D. Wilson / Gary Taylor & Hjalti Árnason 1992 / Jamie Reeves Magnús Ver Magnússon / Gary Taylor 1993 Gerrit Badenhorst Magnús Ver Magnússon / Jamie Reeves 1994 Andrés Guðmundsson Manfred Hoeberl / Gary Taylor 1995 Jouko Ahola Flemming Rasmussen Heinz Ollesch 1996 Nathan Jones Magnús Ver Magnússon Manfred Hoeberl 1997 Magnús Ver Magnússon Heinz Ollesch Svend Karlsen 1998 Magnus Samuelsson Mark Phillipi / Jamie Reeves Beauty and the Beast 1999 Jouko Ahola Magnus Samuelsson Joe Onosai 2000 Janne Virtanen Heinz Ollesch Svend Karlsen 2001 Magnus Samuelsson Phil Pfister Svend Karlsen 2002 Hugo Girard Zydrunas Savickas Mariusz Pudzianowski 2003 Mariusz Pudzianowski Raimonds Bergmanis Zydrunas Savickas IFSA 2006 Žydrūnas Savickas Derek Poundstone Jon Andersen
Results for the IFSA and Original versions from David Horne's World of Grip.
See also List of strongman competitions
References
External links David Horne's World of Grip