World's Strongest Man

World's Strongest Man

The official logo of World's Strongest Man
Location	2016: Botswana
Established	1977
Format	Multi-event competition
Brian Shaw

The World's Strongest Man is a strongman competition. Organized by TWI, an IMG Media company, it is broadcast around the end of December each year. Competitors qualify based on placing in the top three at the four to eight Giants Live events each year.

The current event sponsor is the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles, California; other past sponsors include DAF Trucks, Tonka, MET-Rx, and PartyPoker.com. The event has a number of rival and parallel competitions with which it is sometimes confused, including the Strongman Super Series, the now defunct IFSA Strongman World Championships (run from 2005-2007 after the International Federation of Strength Athletes parted company with WSM in 2004) and Strongman Champions League.

The concept behind "The World's Strongest Men", as it was originally named, was developed in 1977 for CBS by Langstar Inc. David Webster, a Scot who later received an OBE for his services to sport, was the head coordinator of the competition from its inception. Dr Douglas Edmunds, seven-times Scottish shot and discus champion and twice world caber champion worked with Webster and when Webster retired Edmunds took over. These two men were responsible for inviting the competitors and choosing the events. In the meantime, in 1982, CBS sold the rights to the BBC, who in turn sold the rights to TWI. In 1987, the WSM was not held for the only time since its inception. In that year the first and only non-team Pure Strength competition was held but it was not part of the WSM franchise.