The Worlds Strongest Man

Complete Listing Of My Sports and Recreation Lenses

Sports and Recreation Lensography

Kazmaier won the World's Strongest Man title three times, in 1980, 1981, and 1982 After these victories, he was not invited back to compete in the WSM contest again until 1988, when he finished second to Jón Páll Sigmarsson.

He finished fourth in his final WSM appearance in 1989. In recent years, he has appeared on ESPN as a commentator on World's Strongest Man broadcasts.

Jón Páll Sigmarsson (April 28, 1960 - January 16, 1993) was a strongman, a power lifter , a bodybuilder and a weightlifter from Iceland who won the World's Strongest Man Competition four times (1984, 1986, 1988, 1990).

In 1984 Sigmarsson won the Icelandic bodybuilding title in the +90 kg. class. His achievements in power lifting also include Icelandic records in the bench press and the squat, but his best performances were usually in the dead lift event, in which he set the European record many times.

A famous quote from him is "there is no point in being alive if you cannot do the dead lift".

In a tragic irony, he died at the age of 32 while performing this exercise in the gym. He knew he had serious heart problems in his family and was aware of this weakness. He will always be remembered as one of the greatest strength athletes of his time.

Magnús Ver Magnússon (born 23 April 1963) of Iceland is a powerlifter and strongman. He won the title of World's Strongest Man four times (1991, 1994, 1995, and 1996), a record matched only by fellow Icelander Jón Páll Sigmarsson and Mariusz Pudzianowski from Poland.

Magnusson began powerlifting in 1984, and in 1985 he won a medal in the junior European and World Championships. He won the Senior European title in the 125 kg (276 lb) class in 1989 and 1990. His best lifts in competition include a 400 kg (882 lb) squat, 274.5 kg (605 lb) bench press, 375 kg (827 lb) deadlift, and a total of 1015 kg (2238 lb). His best deadlift was 445 kg (981 lb).

Magnusson competed in his first strongman contest in 1985, finishing third in the Iceland's Strongest Man competition won by Jón Páll Sigmarsson. He decided to focus solely on strongman competition after he won the 1991 World's Strongest Man contest.

His strongman victories include the 1989 Pure Strength contest (Scotland), the 1991 and 1993 International Power Challenge, the 1992 Scandinavian Strongest Man (Finland), the 1992 Nordic Strongest Man (Denmark), the 1994 Europe's Strongest Man, the 1995 World Muscle power Championship, and the 1995 and 1997 Viking Challenge.

In addition to his four World's Strongest Man titles, he was also runner-up in 1992 and 1993.

On May 1, 1999 Mariusz entered his first Strongman competition, which was held in Poland. He achieved his first major success at the international level in 2000 when he finished fourth in his first World's Strongest Man competition. He returned to win the WSM contest in 2002, and retained his title in 2003 by the largest margin ever achieved in the competition. In March, 2004 he also became the Strongman Super Series World Champion. He initially finished third in the WSM contest in 2004, but was later disqualified after testing positive for a banned performance-enhancing substance. He was forced to return his prize money, stripped of the International Federation of Strength Athletes points from the event, and received a one-year ban from competition. Pudzianowski did not dispute his banned substance violation and waived his right to have his stool sample verified. He then returned to win the title for a third time in 2005.

In the 2006 World's Strongest Man contest, he came second to the American Phil Pfister, the first American to win the championship since Bill Kazmeier in 1982. Pudzianowski had led for most of the competition, however Pfister won the last five events to narrowly clinch the title. In the final event, the Atlas Stones, the two went head-to-head; Pfister managed all five, whilst Mariusz failed to complete the final stone.

Pudzianowski regained his title in 2007, winning with one event to spare (which he had also done in 2003 and 2005). He joins Jón Páll Sigmarsson and Magnús Ver Magnússon as the only four-time winners. In the WSM 2007 competition he said that his target is to win once more to become the only person to win the event 5 times.

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The Worlds Strongest Man by DMedley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.