World Muscle Power Championships

World Muscle Power Classic

The official logo of World Muscle Power 2003
Location	Scotland from 1985-2002 Quebec 2003-2004
Established	1985
Final year	2004
Format	Multi-event competition
Hugo Girard

The World Muscle Power Classic (WMPC) (sometimes known as the World Muscle Power Championships) was one of the most enduring annual strongmen competitions, running for twenty years and in that time attaining the position of the second most prestigious strongman contest in the world, after the World's Strongest Man. It was notable for that reason and for the quality of the strength athletes it attracted, which included every winner of the World's Strongest Man competition from 1980 onwards including Jón Páll Sigmarsson, Geoff Capes and Bill Kazmaier from the 1980s right up to the five time WSM champion Mariusz Pudzianowski, who was never able to capture the WMPC title.

The World Muscle Power Classic (WMPC) first took place in 1985, with the by then established World's Strongest Man having made the popularity of strongman competitions such that this second world title was viable. In a sport notorious for the difficulty with which organisers are faced in making an event enduring, the WMPC stood side-by-side with the World's Strongest Man for almost twenty years and in that time saw many other events come and go. From the outset it attracted the very best athletes in the field and the final placings in that inaugural 1985 competition saw Jón Páll Sigmarsson, Geoff Capes and Bill Kazmaier on the podium, all previous winners of the World's Strongest Man and who between them won that title nine times. The event was organized and produced by Doug Edmunds and later the Reeves brothers. For its inception until 2002, the event was held in Scotland, home of the Highland Games, which has a claim to be the progenitor of strength athletics. The quality of the entrants continued unabated, attracting the very best in the world, and the competition quickly became regarded as the second most prestigious title after World's Strongest Man.

The events twentieth century years saw it have a distinctly Highland Games touch. In 1998 for example, there was an opening ceremony started with a parade and several bag pipe bands played as the "World Highland Games Competitors" and the "World Muscle Power Classic Competitors" entered the field together. The competitors lined up in front of the Chieftains table and Jouko Ahola, the then current World Strongest Man was given the title of honorary chieftain. He was dressed in a kilt and officially started the Games by banging the sword on the shield to the four winds.