Fortissimus

Fortissimus

2009
The official logo of Fortissimus
Tournament information
Location	Montmagny, Quebec Canada
Established	2008
Final year	2009
Format	Multi-event competition
Final champion
Zydrunas Savickas

The Fortissimus is a defunct event in strength athletics. The name means "the mightiest" and was a multi-event challenge at the end of which the winner is crowned as the "Strongest Man on Earth". It was set up to bring together the strongest competitors on the planet independent of the organisations to which they were signed, and also as a tribute to the nineteenth-century Canadian strongman Louis Cyr, which gave it many similarities to Le Defi Mark Ten International which last took place in Canada in the early 1990s. After its first airing in 2008, the strength athletics magazine Milo described it as the ultimate strongman competition ever held. Despite a successful edition in 2009, a reported lack of a major sponsor for 2010 resulted in the competition being suspended, no future contests have been announced.

The world of strength athletics in 2008 was 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 the WSM and its associated WSM Super Series nor the IFSA circuit can claim to have a comprehensive field of the top athletes. Some events did exist that bridged the divide between the major organisations, such as the Arnold Strongman Classic. Fortissimus was to be another such bridge but with a difference. The driving force behind the event, Paul Ohl, is one of the world's leading authorities on the great Louis Cyr, the nineteenth century strongman and want to create a competition to honour this man, said to have been the strongest man in the world. Fortissimus was set up to be the all-inclusive strength and power package to demonstrate "the essence of the sport of strongman is the multi-disciplinary array of tests of global strength, resulting from a combination of static (brute) strength, overall explosive power and power grip, strength athletics mastery, endurance and stamina". The concept was to link with the tradition of strongman and to honor the memory and deeds of the great Louis Cyr. Ten events, called the Classical Events, were incorporated into the programme.