Who Is the Strongest Person in the World?

Every year, brawny men from across the globe gather to compete for the title of World's Strongest Man. This strongman competition is held every May and organized by the American management company IMG. Taking place in different locations around the world, it's considered to be one of the premier events in the world of strength competition.

Below are the most recent winners and runners-up (the second place slot). Competitors in this renowned world record contest must excel in a number of different strength contests, from the farmer's walk to the power stairs and others.

1. Tom Stoltman

Winner of the 2024 World's Strongest Man title, Stoltman (who is the younger brother of Luke Stoltman, another world-class strongman) is a legend in the world of strength sports.

Nicknamed "The Albatross" for his massive wingspan/arm span, this three-time winner of the title is the current world's strongest man. He leverages his impressive size, body weight and muscle mass to dominate the competition.

2. Mitchell Hooper

Mitchell "The Moose" Hooper won the 2023 World's Strongest Man title, as well as the 2023 Arnold Strongman classic, making him only the fourth person in history to hold both titles in the same year.

Between these acclaimed competitions, the Rogue Invitational, the Giants Live strongman world tour, and Brian Shaw's Strongest Man on Earth, Hooper has an astonishing streak of placing no lower than third in his last 20 competitions.

3. Oleksii Novikov

Winner of the 2020 World's Strongest Man title, Novikov graduated from being Ukraine's Strongest Man to compete for world records, with consistently dominant results in circus dumbbell press events. After his 2020 win, he placed third in 2022 and 2023.

4. Martins Licis

Martins "The Dragon" Licis won the World's Strongest Man title in 2019, and was the runner-up in 2022, the same year he won the Arnold Strongman Classic.

Although born in Latvia, he moved to the United States when he was four, eventually gaining dual citizenship. He has represented the U.S. as an international competitor and owns Wreck-It Gym in Southern California.

5. Evan Singleton

Evan Singleton placed third in 2024's World's Strongest Man Competition. His path to strongman competition was somewhat unconventional: At 18, he had already embarked upon a professional wrestling career, competing in the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) under the name Adam Mercer.

After Singleton's wrestling career came to an end, he briefly trained as a bodybuilder before settling on strongman competition. Injuries have dogged him, but his results have been impressive nonetheless.

The Arnold Strongman Classic is another renowned strongman contest, also held annually. As you might have guessed, it's named after the most famous bodybuilder in the world, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Arnold Strongman Classic vies with the World's Strongest Man for the premier event in strength sports, and many top strength athletes compete in both.

1. Mateusz Kieliszkowski

Kieliszkowski is a three-time runner up in the Arnold Strongman Classic, having taken second place at the competition in 2024, 2023 and 2020. He was also the runner-up in the WSM contest in 2018 and 2019.

2. Bobby Thompson

Bobby Thompson finished third in the 2023 and 2022 competitions. He currently holds the American record in the log lift.

3. Luke Stoltman

Brother of Tom Stoltman, Luke is similarly accomplished and no stranger to strongman competitions. Luke Stoltman finished in third place in the 2022 Arnold Strongman Classic, where he tied with Bobby Thompson. He also won the Europe's Strongest Man competition twice: in 2021 and 2024.

As you've gathered by now, there are quite a few strongman competitions out there, and records are being made and broken all the time. Besides the athletes who have recently distinguished themselves in the Arnold Strongman Classic and the World's Strongest Man event, here are some men who can handle some seriously heavy weights.

1. Hafthór Björnsson

There's a strong (get it?) case to be made that Hafþór (which can be transliterated to English by spelling it "Hafthor") is one of the strongest men to have ever lived, if not the very strongest.

In 2018, he won the World's Strongest Man, the Arnold Strongman and Europe's Strongest Man, a hat trick that hadn't been previously achieved — and hasn't been matched since.

This literal giant of a human being, who has won numerous awards and holds several world records as a professional strongman, also appeared on the HBO show "Game of Thrones," where he played Gregor Leclane, known as "The Mountain."

2. Brian Shaw

Another man of legendary strength, Shaw won the World's Strongest Man four times — in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016 — a record that has only been matched by five other human beings.

He also won the World's Strongest Man and the Arnold Strongman Classic in the same year in 2011, the first person to do so. And in 2015, he did it again. Need we say more?

3. Eddie Hall

Now retired, Eddie Hall remains a prominent personality in the world of strongman events. He won the World's Strongest Man in 2017, after placing third in 2016 in 2014. In 2016, he successfully completed a 500 kg (1, 102 lbs) deadlift, a record that stood for almost four years before Hafþór Björnsson beat it by a single kilogram in 2020.

4. Zydrunas Savickas

When it comes to strongman competitions, nobody can match Savickas' stack of accomplishments, which includes four World's Strongest Man titles, eight Arnold Strongman Classic titles, three Europe's Strongest Man wins, and over 70 world records.

With a career that lasted 25 years, many consider him to be the greatest strongman of all time.

Right now, the strongest woman in the world is decided by the World's Strongest Woman competition, which is held annually in a format not dissimilar to the male version. There are also strongwoman competitions at the Arnold Classic and Rogue Invitational.

The 2023 WSW title went to Rebecca Roberts, who stands 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 meters), weighs 287 to 397 lbs (130 to 180 kg), and has won the competition twice (the first time was in 2021). Roberts is from North Wales, UK.

Strongwoman and strongman competitions seek to measure as many components of strength as possible and have evolved over the years to include the most comprehensive list feats.

As with many sports, the road to glory is a long one, and modern strength athletes compete at many levels in categories that are broken down by region and weight class. Once athletes begin taking a shot at the premier titles, the weight classes go away.

At the top level, being able to do an amazing dead lift isn't enough. World-class strongmen and strongwomen have elaborate weight training routines, building up the necessary muscle mass and flexibility to compete in everything from pulling planes, trains and automobiles to lifting "Atlas Stones" (a series of increasingly heavy spherical stones) onto platforms.

This is all for the sake of being as well-rounded in your strength as possible.

To win at the highest levels, you need to have static strength (the ability to hold a heavy weight still, for instance), dynamic strength (lifting or pulling), strength endurance (the ability to perform a feat for the longest possible time or distance), explosive strength (moving heavy weights very rapidly) and so forth.