The International Federation of Strength Athletes (IFSA or IFSA Strongman) was an international governing body for strongman competition. IFSA operated from 1995 to 2007 and was based in Glasgow, Scotland.
History
Origins In 1995, David Webster, a Scotsman who later received an OBE for his services to sport and head coordinator of the World's Strongest Man from its inception, and his colleague Dr Douglas Edmunds, seven-times Scottish shot and discus champion and twice world caber champion,The Herald Scotland "Bring on the war games" DOUG GILLON, Athletics Correspondent, 19 May 2007 along with representatives from the competitors in strength athletics including Jamie Reeves, Ilkka Kinnunen and Marcel Mostert formed a governing body called the International Federation of Strength Athletes ("IFSA"). IFSA ran its own grand prix events from 1995 to 2001 in cooperation with WSM. IFSA began co-producing the Strongman Super Series events from 2001 to 2004, still in cooperation with WSM. IFSA entered an agreement with World Class Events (WCE), headed by Ulf Bengtsson, to run the Strongman Super Series. The Strongman Super Series was designed to award the annual Strongman World Championship title, but also acted as a qualifying vehicle for the World's Strongest Man contest.
Split with WSM For almost a decade IFSA and WSM worked in full cooperation, but this changed at the end of the 2004 season when IFSA returned to organizing its own grand prix events and World Strongman Championships from 2005 to 2007. The InvestGroup Ventures' sports rights management arm, InvestGroup Sports Management, invested heavily into IFSA and this led to the creation of IFSA Strongman. The strategy was to acquire most of the international assets and properties relating to the strongman sport. In essence this was a new organization with some, such as Magnus Samuelsson describing it as "a new company...with the same name as our old federation". The attempt at dominance was not well received by TWI/WSM and disagreement ensued leading to a split in the sport. When IFSA and WSM split in 2004, the Strongman Super Series sided with TWI/WSM forming a rival federation to the IFSA. With the WSM being a TWI owned event, IFSA Holdings announced its own World Strongman Championships for 2005, to be held in Quebec, and thus from that point had no involvement in the WSM contest. From this point, IFSA continued to organize the annual IFSA World Strongman Championships and a series of Grand Prix events throughout the year. Between 2005 and 2007 IFSA had their own version of other major events such as a rival IFSA version of Europe's Strongest Man, known as Europe's Strongest Man (IFSA).
Thus, the world of strength athletics became fragmented, with a number of individuals being able to lay claim to be the strongest in the world by virtue of having won mutually exclusive events. Athletes affiliated to IFSA Strongman were not allowed to compete in the World's Strongest Man ("WSM"), which is produced by TWI and thus neither WSM and its associated Strongman Super Series nor the IFSA circuit could claim to have a comprehensive field of the top athletes. Some events did exist that bridged the divide between the major organizations, such as the Arnold Strongman Classic and Fortissimus.
Dissolution of IFSA/birth of SCL After the 2007 IFSA World Championships in South Korea, news began to circulate of athletes not being paid, and equipment shipping costs not being honored. IFSA eventually ended up owing $63,000 for shipping their equipment from England to South Korea and finally to Philadelphia. When the money was not paid, the equipment was put up for sale and was eventually purchased by other strongman contest promoters. The 2007 IFSA World Championships would be the final contest run solely by, and under the banner of, IFSA.
In 2008 IFSA executives Ilkka Kinnunen and Marcel Mostert developed the Strongman Champions League and negotiated with IFSA to use its athletes. However, the dissolution of IFSA meant that since the end of 2007, the Strongman Champions League still operated independent of IFSA. Gradually, the last vestiges of IFSA influence began to diminish which led to the breaking down of barriers between the various concurrent circuits. Strength athletes were able to compete in more than one circuit and did so, with a cross over of athletes between the Giants Live circuit, the Strongman Champions League and the Strongman Super Series being apparent. The 2009 World's Strongest Man was therefore anticipated by the strength athletics world as promising to be "the best one yet" because the organisers could ensure invites were made to "every top athlete in the world" regardless of their affiliation to any particular strength athletics body.
IFSA Strongman World Championships
2005: IFSA Strongman World Championships Dates: 25 September 2005
Quebec City, Canada PositionNameCountryPoints 1. Žydrūnas Savickas 103 2. Vasyl Virastyuk 96 3. Mikhail Koklyaev 93.5 4. Andrus Murumets 86 5. Raimonds Bergmanis 84.5 6. Phil Pfister 82.5 7. Vidas Blekaitis 81.5 8. Magnus Samuelsson 69 9. Robert Szczepanski 67 10. Travis Ortmayer 64.5 11. Geoff Dolan 54.5 12. Karl Gillingham 43
2006: IFSA Strongman World Championships Dates: 24, 25 November 2006
Reykjavik, Iceland This was the first year that qualifying heats were used. There were 3 heats, with the top 4 from each heat moving on to the finals.
PositionNameCountryPoints 1. Žydrūnas Savickas 80.5 2. Mikhail Koklyaev 78.5 3. Vasyl Virastyuk 72 4. Vidas Blekaitis 70 5. Andrus Murumets 55 6. Robert Szczepanski 46.5 7. Benedikt Magnusson 44.5 8. Oli Thompson 43 9. Nick Best 38 10. Travis Ortmayer 35 11. Saulius Brusokas 33.5 12. Ervin Katona 20.5
2007: IFSA Strongman World Championships Dates: 12–15 September 2007
Geumsan, South Korea The 2007 competition included 6 qualifying heats, with the top 2 from each heat moving on to the finals.
PositionNameCountryPoints 1. Vasyl Virastyuk 57.5 2. Mikhail Koklyaev 52.5 3. Žydrūnas Savickas 51.5 4. Derek Poundstone 50.5 5. Andrus Murumets 46.5 6. Vidas Blekaitis 41.5 7. Robert Szczepanski 40 8. Van Hatfield 32.5 9. Saulius Brusokas 29.5 10. Tom McClure 26 11. Ervin Katona 20.5 12. Jarno Hams 17.5
Grand Prix events
1995 Name and LocationChampionRunner-up3rd Place Copenhagen, Denmark Heinz Ollesch Flemming Rasmussen Torfi Olaffson Klaipėda, Lithuania Gary Taylor Forbes Cowan Stasys Mėčius Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany Magnus Ver Magnusson Gary Taylor Heinz Ollesch Flemming Rasmussen
1996 Name and LocationChampionRunner-up3rd PlaceDate Copenhagen, Denmark Flemming Rasmussen Magnus Ver Magnusson Torfi Olaffson Denmark Riku Kiri Magnus Ver Magnusson Flemming Rasmussen Klaipėda, Lithuania Riku Kiri Heinz Ollesch Magnus Ver Magnusson 7 July 1996 Flemming Rasmussen
1997 Name and LocationChampionRunner-up3rd Place Meerssen, Netherlands Riku Kiri Gerrit Badenhorst Magnus Ver Magnusson Copenhagen, Denmark Flemming Rasmussen Riku Kiri Magnus Ver Magnusson Klaipėda, Lithuania Stasys Mecius Raimonds Bergmanis Magnus Ver Magnusson Flemming Rasmussen
1998 Name and LocationChampionRunner-up3rd PlaceDate Helsinki, Finland Magnus Samuelsson Riku Kiri Svend Karlsen 14 March 1998 Klaipėda, Lithuania Jamie Reeves Raimunds Kencivikius Wayne Price 1 August 1998 Budapest, Hungary Riku Kiri Flemming Rasmussen László Fekete 2 August 1998 Arnbruck, Germany Riku Kiri Jouko Ahola Heinz Ollesch 5 September 1998 Faroe Islands Magnus Samuelsson Riku Kiri Svend Karlsen
1999 Name and LocationChampionRunner-up3rd PlaceDate Helsinki, Finland Jouko Ahola Sami Heinonen Janne Virtanen 6 March 1999 Faroe Islands Jouko Ahola Regin Vagadal Magnus Samuelsson 16 May 1999 Keszthely. Hungary Berend Veneberg Gerrit Badenhorst Jouko Ahola 18 July 1999 Hardenberg, Netherlands Gerrit Badenhorst Jouko Ahola Berend Veneberg 24 July 1999 Prague, Czech Republic Magnus Samuelsson Jouko Ahola Joe Onosai 14 August 1999 Iceland Hugo Girard Magnus Samuelsson Janne Virtanen 17 October 1999 Matti Uppa
2000 Name and LocationChampionRunner-up3rd PlaceDate Helsinki, Finland Janne Virtanen Magnus Samuelsson Svend Karlsen 18 March 2000 Ireland Magnus Samuelsson Janne Virtanen Svend Karlsen 30 April 2000 Sopot, Poland Magnus Samuelsson Janne Virtanen Jarek Dymek 25 June 2000 Faroe Islands Regin Vagadal Janne Virtanen Magnus Samuelsson 2 September 2000 Prague, Czech Republic Jan Bártl Svend Karlsen Martin Muhr 2 September 2000 Bucharest, Romania Magnus Samuelsson Janne Virtanen Rene Minkwitz 16 September 2000 Panyu, China Magnus Samuelsson Hugo Girard Janne Virtanen 8 October 2000
2001 Name and LocationChampionRunner-up3rd PlaceDate Sopot, Poland Jarek Dymek Janne Virtanen Svend Karlsen 10 March 2007 Faroe Islands Regin Vágadal Janne Virtanen Jarek Dymek 28 July 2007 Kokkola, Finland Svend Karlsen Wout Zijlstra Rene Minkwitz 26 August 2007
2002 Name and LocationChampionRunner-up3rd PlaceDate Szczyrk, Poland Janne Virtanen Jarek Dymek Hugo Girard 9 February 2002 Vantaa, Finland Janne Virtanen Svend Karlsen Juha-Matti Räsänen 20 April 2002 Istanbul, Turkey Janne Virtanen Wout Zijlstra Bernd Kerschbaumer 18 May 2002 Mariehamn, Finland Jorma Paananen Rene Minkwitz Harri Simonen 10 August 2002 Imatra, Finland Juha-Matti Räsänen Rene Minkwitz Anders Johansson 17 August 2002 Panyu, China Svend Karlsen Juha-Matti Räsänen Žydrūnas Savickas 20 October 2002
2003 Name and LocationChampionRunner-up3rd PlaceDate Inowrocław, Poland Jarek Dymek Robert Szczepański Raimonds Bergmanis 12 April 2003 Vantaa, Finland Janne Virtanen Mariusz Pudzianowski Juha-Matti Räsänen 17 May 2003 Winnipeg, Canada Eddy Ellwood Andrus Murumets Peter Baltus 15 June 2003 Ylitornio, Finland Mariusz Pudzianowski Janne Virtanen Vidas Blekaitis 28 June 2003 Gdynia, Poland Mariusz Pudzianowski Jarek Dymek Magnus Samuelsson 24 August 2003 Sopron, Hungary Ervin Katona Ádám Darázs Tomi Lotta 15 November 2003
2004 Name and LocationChampionRunner-up3rd PlaceDate Jūrmala, Latvia Raimonds Bergmanis Žydrūnas Savickas Vilius Petrauskas 22 May 2004 Turkey Mariusz Pudzianowski Tomi Lotta Svend Karlsen 22 May 2004 Doetinchem, Netherlands Mariusz Pudzianowski Svend Karlsen Žydrūnas Savickas 13 June 2004 Ukraine Vasyl Virastyuk Magnus Samuelsson Žydrūnas Savickas 20 June 2004 Šiauliai, Lithuania Žydrūnas Savickas Vasyl Virastyuk Tomasz Nowotniak 3 July 2004 Riga, Latvia Mariusz Pudzianowski Raimonds Bergmanis Vasyl Virastyuk 18 July 2004 Szeged, Hungary Ervin Katona Saulius Brusokas Ettiene Smit 11 September 2004
2005 Beginning in 2005, IFSA cut all ties with World's Strongest Man and Strongman Super Series and began hosting their own grand prix events and world championships from 2005 to 2007. Name and LocationChampionRunner-up3rd PlaceDate Szeged, Hungary Žydrūnas Savickas Rene Minkwitz Ettiene Smit 1 May 2005 Dubai, United Arab Emirates Tomi Lotta Robert Szczepański Andrus Murumets 19 May 2005 Moscow, Russia Žydrūnas Savickas Raimonds Bergmanis Mikhail Koklyaev 6 June 2005 Doetinchem, Netherlands Tomi Lotta Jarno Hams Rene Minkwitz 12 June 2005 Hungary Jarno Hams Ádám Darázs Jan Křeháček 25 June 2005 Riga, Latvia Žydrūnas Savickas Tomi Lotta Andrus Murumets 17 July 2005 Kristiansand, Norway Svend Karlsen Magnus Samuelsson Juha-Matti Räsänen 6 August 2005 São Paulo, Brazil Mikhail Koklyaev Svend Karlsen Robert Szczepański 20 August 2005 São Paulo, Brazil Phil Pfister Travis Ortmayer Karl Gillingham 21 August 2005 Šiauliai, Lithuania Žydrūnas Savickas Vilius Petrauskas Andrus Murumets 27 August 2005 Denmark Rene Minkwitz Van Hatfield Juha-Pekka Aitala 20 November 2005
2006