World's Strongest Man

Synopsis

To those who take part, World's Strongest Man is more than a mere gameshow, it's a proper sporting event. To which we at UKGameshows.com say "oh yeah, then how come it's filmed months in advance, bunged out over Christmas, and they don't even read out the results on Grandstand or nuffink?". And then back away a bit sharpish, 'cos those guys are bigger than us. Much bigger. (Except Andrew "Stumpy" Raynes. We could have him in a fight, easy.)

Anyway, you know what this is. Thirty or so enormous blokes from around the world lift rocks, pull trains, hold up vans full of gold bricks, and suchthelike. The golden age was of course the 1980s, when it made a national hero out of British canary and budgie breeder and two-time world champ Geoff Capes. And later on it gave Jamie Reeves something to do in between hod-carrying appearances on Record Breakers.

The contest did hit a bit of a dull patch in the 1990s, but in recent years has become very watchable again, thanks in no small part to the stellar presentation team of John Inverdale and Paul Dickenson. Even Jamie Reeves, his hod-carrying days long behind him, turned up to explain the events and assess the competitors' chances. Unfortunately, the whole Strongman thing really has gone on to a more professional Proper Sport footing in recent years, which alas means that what with having to hold down proper jobs as well, Britain's part-time strongmen don't really stand a chance against those Eastern Europeans who spend 28 hours a day in training.

It's moved all over the place, from ITV to BBC, to Five, and now to Bravo. John Inverdale did the first year on Five before being replaced by Martin Bayfield, who does his best to imitate his predecessor, bless him, but doesn't quite manage it. Also, what traditionally marked the days off between Boxing Day and New Year is now on at the beginning of January, Paul Dickenson no longer provides commentary (though they have located a replacement, Nick Halling, who sounds spookily like him) and the episodes don't finish with one of the competitors beating Inverdale up in a variety of comedy ways. Never mind, though.

Trivia

In 2004, the contest was reduced to twelve competitors who took part in a complicated round-robin competition with a weird scoring system that we didn't quite understand ourselves. Happily they reverted back to the traditional "top two from each heat progress to the final" tournament format we all knew and loved in 2006.

As well as the main World's Strongest Man contest, the Beeb also showed Britain's Strongest Man, in which all the contestants are British, Europe's Strongest Man, in which all the contestants are European, and World's Strongest Woman, in which... well, you can probably work it out for yourself. Five also show World's Strongest Man Super Series, a series of self-contained contests which serve as qualifying events for the main World's Strongest Man competition. British Eurosport also shows all sorts of variations on the theme, but we have to draw the line somewhere.

At 6' 10" (2.08m), Martin Bayfield is probably the UK's tallest game show host, perhaps even the tallest TV presenter overall.

Web links

Historic contest records

The living legend, Geoff Capes

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