International Federation of Strength Athletes

In 1995, David Webster, a Scotsman who later received an OBE for his services to sport and head coordinator of the World's Strongest Man from its inception, and his colleague Dr Douglas Edmunds, seven-times Scottish shot and discus champion and twice world caber champion,[2] along with representatives from the competitors in strength athletics including Jamie Reeves, Ilkka Kinnunen and Marcel Mostert formed a governing body called the International Federation of Strength Athletes ("IFSA"). IFSA ran its own grand prix events from 1995 to 2001 in cooperation with WSM. IFSA began co-producing the Strongman Super Series events from 2001 to 2004, still in cooperation with WSM. IFSA entered an agreement with World Class Events (WCE), headed by Ulf Bengtsson, to run the Strongman Super Series. The Strongman Super Series was designed to award the annual Strongman World Championship title, but also acted as a qualifying vehicle for the World's Strongest Man contest.

For almost a decade IFSA and WSM worked in full cooperation, but this changed at the end of the 2004 season when IFSA returned to organizing its own grand prix events and World Strongman Championships from 2005 to 2007. The InvestGroup Ventures' sports rights management arm, InvestGroup Sports Management, invested heavily into IFSA and this led to the creation of IFSA Strongman. The strategy was to acquire most of the international assets and properties relating to the strongman sport. In essence this was a new organization[3] with some, such as Magnus Samuelsson describing it as "a new company...with the same name as our old federation".[4] The attempt at dominance was not well received by TWI/WSM and disagreement ensued leading to a split in the sport. When IFSA and WSM split in 2004, the Strongman Super Series sided with TWI/WSM forming a rival federation to the IFSA.[3] With the WSM being a TWI owned event, IFSA Holdings announced its own World Strongman Championships for 2005, to be held in Quebec, and thus from that point had no involvement in the WSM contest. From this point, IFSA continued to organize the annual IFSA World Strongman Championships and a series of Grand Prix events throughout the year. Between 2005 and 2007 IFSA had their own version of other major events such as a rival IFSA version of Europe's Strongest Man, known as Europe's Strongest Man (IFSA).

Thus, the world of strength athletics became 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 WSM and its associated Strongman Super Series nor the IFSA circuit could claim to have a comprehensive field of the top athletes. Some events did exist that bridged the divide between the major organizations, such as the Arnold Strongman Classic and Fortissimus.

After the 2007 IFSA World Championships in South Korea, news began to circulate of athletes not being paid, and equipment shipping costs not being honored.[5] IFSA eventually ended up owing $63,000[5] for shipping their equipment from England to South Korea and finally to Philadelphia. When the money was not paid, the equipment was put up for sale and was eventually purchased by other strongman contest promoters.[6] The 2007 IFSA World Championships would be the final contest run solely by, and under the banner of, IFSA.

In 2008 IFSA executives Ilkka Kinnunen and Marcel Mostert developed the Strongman Champions League and negotiated with IFSA to use its athletes. However, the dissolution of IFSA meant that since the end of 2007, the Strongman Champions League still operated independent of IFSA. Gradually, the last vestiges of IFSA influence began to diminish which led to the breaking down of barriers between the various concurrent circuits. Strength athletes were able to compete in more than one circuit and did so, with a cross over of athletes between the Giants Live circuit, the Strongman Champions League and the Strongman Super Series being apparent. The 2009 World's Strongest Man was therefore anticipated by the strength athletics world as promising to be "the best one yet"[7] because the organisers could ensure invites were made to "every top athlete in the world" regardless of their affiliation to any particular strength athletics body.

Dates: 25 September 2005

Quebec City, Canada

Position	Name	Country	Points
1.	Žydrūnas Savickas		103
2.	Vasyl Virastyuk		96
3.	Mikhail Koklyaev		93.5
4.	Andrus Murumets		86
5.	Raimonds Bergmanis		84.5
6.	Phil Pfister		82.5
7.	Vidas Blekaitis		81.5
8.	Magnus Samuelsson		69
9.	Robert Szczepanski		67
10.	Travis Ortmayer		64.5
11.	Geoff Dolan		54.5
12.	Karl Gillingham		43

Dates: 24, 25 November 2006

Reykjavik, Iceland

• This was the first year that qualifying heats were used. There were 3 heats, with the top 4 from each heat moving on to the finals.

Position	Name	Country	Points
1.	Žydrūnas Savickas		80.5
2.	Mikhail Koklyaev		78.5
3.	Vasyl Virastyuk		72
4.	Vidas Blekaitis		70
5.	Andrus Murumets		55
6.	Robert Szczepanski		46.5
7.	Benedikt Magnusson		44.5
8.	Oli Thompson		43
9.	Nick Best		38
10.	Travis Ortmayer		35
11.	Saulius Brusokas		33.5
12.	Ervin Katona		20.5

Dates: 12–15 September 2007

Geumsan, South Korea

• The 2007 competition included 6 qualifying heats, with the top 2 from each heat moving on to the finals.

Position	Name	Country	Points
1.	Vasyl Virastyuk		57.5
2.	Mikhail Koklyaev		52.5
3.	Žydrūnas Savickas		51.5
4.	Derek Poundstone		50.5
5.	Andrus Murumets		46.5
6.	Vidas Blekaitis		41.5
7.	Robert Szczepanski		40
8.	Van Hatfield		32.5
9.	Saulius Brusokas		29.5
10.	Tom McClure		26
11.	Ervin Katona		20.5
12.	Jarno Hams		17.5

Beginning in 2005, IFSA cut all ties with World's Strongest Man and Strongman Super Series and began hosting their own grand prix events and world championships from 2005 to 2007.

Name and Location	Champion	Runner-Up	3rd Place	Date
Szeged, Hungary Hungary Grand Prix[52]	Žydrūnas Savickas	Rene Minkwitz	Ettiene Smit	1 May 2005
Dubai, United Arab Emirates Dubai Grand Prix[52]	Tomi Lotta	Robert Szczepański	Andrus Murumets	19 May 2005
Moscow, Russia Russia Grand Prix[52]	Žydrūnas Savickas	Raimonds Bergmanis	Mikhail Koklyaev	6 June 2005
Doetinchem, Netherlands Holland Grand Prix[52]	Tomi Lotta	Jarno Hams	Rene Minkwitz	12 June 2005
Hungary West European Championships[52]	Jarno Hams	Ádám Darázs	Jan Křeháček	25 June 2005
Riga, Latvia European Championships[52]	Žydrūnas Savickas	Tomi Lotta	Andrus Murumets	17 July 2005
Kristiansand, Norway Nordic Championships[52]	Svend Karlsen	Magnus Samuelsson	Juha-Matti Räsänen	6 August 2005
São Paulo, Brazil World Open[53]	Mikhail Koklyaev	Svend Karlsen	Robert Szczepański	20 August 2005
São Paulo, Brazil Pan American Championships[54]	Phil Pfister	Travis Ortmayer	Karl Gillingham	21 August 2005
Šiauliai, Lithuania CEKOL Cup[55]	Žydrūnas Savickas	Vilius Petrauskas	Andrus Murumets	27 August 2005
Denmark Denmark Grand Prix[54]	Rene Minkwitz	Van Hatfield	Juha-Pekka Aitala	20 November 2005

Name and Location	Champion	Runner-Up	3rd Place	Date
Riga, Latvia SCL Latvia[62]	Žydrūnas Savickas	Travis Ortmayer	Agris Kazelniks	22 March 2008
Subotica, Serbia SCL Serbia[62]	Žydrūnas Savickas	Ervin Katona	Andrus Murumets	10 May 2008
Varsseveld, Netherlands SCL Holland[62]	Žydrūnas Savickas	Andrus Murumets	Travis Ortmayer	1 June 2008
Sofia, Bulgaria SCL Bulgaria[62]	Andrus Murumets	Žydrūnas Savickas	Ervin Katona	21 June 2008
Vilnius, Lithuania SCL Lithuania[62]	Žydrūnas Savickas	Vidas Blekaitis	Saulius Brusokas	2 August 2008
Constanța, Romania SCL Romania[62]	Žydrūnas Savickas	Ervin Katona	Oleksandr Lashyn	16 August 2008
Kokkola, Finland SCL Finland[62]	Mikhail Koklyaev	Žydrūnas Savickas	Ervin Katona	29 August 2008
Overall placings[62]	Žydrūnas Savickas 130 points	Ervin Katona 72 points	Agris Kazelniks 60 points

Events were planned in the following locations but cancelled: Dubai, Germany and Hungary