Giants Live

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Giants Live
2013
The official logo of Giants Live
Tournament information
Established	2009
Format	Multi-event competition
Purse	varies

Giants Live is The Official Worlds Strongest Man Qualifying Tour. It was created in 2009 as the official Tour that qualifies strongmen to compete in the annual World's Strongest Man contest. At each Grand Prix up to twelve international strongman come together and fight over six events. The top 3 at each contest gain an invitation to compete in the World's Strongest Man contest for that same year.

History

On April 27, 2009 Giants Live was named the Official World's Strongest Man Qualifying Tour for 2009–2011, thus taking over from the Strongman Super Series in this regard. The first 2009 qualifying event took place on May 17 at the Mohegan Sun Casino Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, and with the second event being the Viking Power competition..^[1]

Giants Live was licensed the exclusive rights by IMG Sports Media, the creator and owner of the World’s Strongest Man competition. Previously, the qualifying tournament was known as the IFSA Strongman Super Series from 2001-2004, and the World’s Strongest Man Super Series from 2005-2008. Strongman Super Series continued to operate under the tile of "Strongman Super Series" in 2009 and 2010, but did not have WSM qualifying status. The Qualifying status went with Giants Live and Colin Bryce, the Tour's producer.

At each Grand Prix event, in common with previous such series, each competitor competes in six different tests of strength with the winner crowned Grand Prix Champion. The top three athletes at each tournament win a qualifying slot at the World’s Strongest Man final.

Along with the Strongman Champions League, this event made important progress in acting as a fundamental part of a unifying movement for world strength athletics by making plans to help SCL get its athletes to the 2009 World's Strongest Man contest. SCL chief, Mostert, stated that "The top 5 SCL athletes will have places in the Giants Live tour for qualifying at World's Strongest Man (WSM) 2009". In addition, he also stated that wild cards for the WSM will include SCL athletes. He went on to say that "Finally we made it all possible again that all the athletes have chances to qualify for the WSM, which means in my opinion the WSM will have the strongest field ever in her history!". He went on to thank TWI/IMG and Giants Live for their part in making these possibilities. This was groundbreaking because for a number of years prior to this, the athletes under the IFSA had been banned by the federation from entering WSM (since the IFSA fell out of favour with TWI). Likewise, the athletes invited to participate in WSM were not invited to participate in IFSA events. Some competitions bridged the divide, such as the Arnold Strongman Classic and more recently Fortissimus, but neither had the history or gravitas, or indeed popular appeal of the iconic World's Strongest Man. The IFSA athletes, with the demise of the IFSA finances, almost all competed in SCL from 2008. This deal, along with the Fortissimus deal before it, united storngman in a way it had not been since 2004.

Producers

Giants Live is a collaboration between IMG Media and Power Productions UK - owned by Colin Bryce:

Colin Bryce - an ex-Strongman competitor, Olympian bobsleigher, is also the head referee and commentator on strongman events such as World's Strongest Man, Britain's Strongest Man, Strongman Super Series and World Strongman Cup, as well as a long-term producer of World Strongest Man through his company Power Productions.

Event Results

2009

Year	Champion	Runner-Up	3rd Place	Location
Mohegan Sun Grand Prix 2009^[2] 17 May 2009	Derek Poundstone	Travis Ortmayer	Brian Shaw	Mohegan Sun Casino Arena, Connecticut
Viking Power Challenge 2009^[3] 6 June 2009	Travis Ortmayer	Richard Skog	Mikhail Koklyaev	Stavanger, Norway
Giants Live Poland^[4] 1 August 2009	Jarek Dymek	Mark Felix	Stefan Solvi Petursson	Malbork, Poland

2010

Year	Champion	Runner-Up	3rd Place	Location
Giants Live-South Africa 10 April 2010^[5]	Brian Shaw	Mikhail Koklyaev	Terry Hollands	Johannesburg, South Africa
Giants Live-Kiev 30 May 2010^[6]	Derek Poundstone	Laurence Shahlaei	Johannes Arsjo	Kiev, Ukraine
Giants Live-London 19 June 2010 Europe's Strongest Man 2010	Zydrunas Savickas	Terry Hollands	Mark Felix	London, England
Giants Live-Poland 8 August 2010^[7]	Vytautas Lalas	Robert Szczepanski	Janusz Kulaga	Poland
Giants Live-Istanbul 24 October 2010^[8]	Zydrunas Savickas	Brian Shaw	Stefan Solvi Petursson	Istanbul, Turkey

2011

Year	Champion	Runner-Up	3rd Place	Location
Giants Live-London March 19, 2011^[9]	Brian Shaw	Laurence Shahlaei	Vytautas Lalas	London, England
Giants Live-Poland August 6, 2011^[10]	Krzysztof Radzikowski	Mike Jenkins	Mateusz Baron	Stróże, Poland
Giants Live-Finland August 13, 2011^[11]	Martin Wildauer	Vidas Blekaitis	Rauno Heinla	Vaasa, Finland
Giants Live-Ukraine August 24, 2011^[12]	Sergey Romanchuk	Mark Felix	Josh Thigpen	Poltava, Ukraine

Giants Live 2011 Finnish qualifiers

Giants Live teamed with Strongman Champions League in 2011 to set up 4 qualifying events to gain entry in the Giants Live Finland event. The events were open only to Finnish athletes.^[13]

Year	Champion	Runner-Up	3rd Place	Location
May 13, 2011^[14]	Juha Matti Jarvi	Antti Mourujärvi	Pedro Karlsson	Pori, Finland
May 21, 2011^[15]	Juha Matti Jarvi	Kai Pasanen	Jarno Kirselä	Masku, Finland
May 28, 2011^[16]	Juha Matti Jarvi	Jarno Kirselä	Kai Pasanen	Jyväskylä, Finland
June 14, 2011^[17]	Juha Matti Jarvi	Jarno Kirselä	Janne Illikainen	Oulu, Finland

The top 4 Finnish athletes to qualify for the Giants Live Finland event on August 13, 2011 were:^[17]

Position	Name	Points
1.	Juha Matti Jarvi	60
2.	Jarno Kirselä	44
3.	Kai Pasanen	30
4.	Tomi Lotta(via SCL series)	17

2012

Year	Champion	Runner-Up	3rd Place	Location
Giants Live-Australia March 17, 18 2012^[18]	Mike Jenkins	Nick Best	Mike Burke	Melbourne, Australia
Giants Live-Finland June 10, 2012^[19]	Laurence Shahlaei	Johannes Arsjo	Lauri Nami	Tampere, Finland
Giants Live-Hungary June 17, 2012^[20]	Akos Nagy	Jack McIntosh	Josh Thigpen	Budapest, Hungary
Giants Live-England June 23, 2012 Europe's Strongest Man 2012^[21]	Zydrunas Savickas	Vytautas Lalas	Laurence Shahlaei	Leeds, England
Giants Live-Poland July 21, 2012^[22]	Krzysztof Radzikowski	Mateusz Baron	Sebastian Kurek	Kartuzy, Poland

2013

Year	Champion	Runner-Up	3rd Place	Location
Giants Live-Australia March 9, 10 2013^[23]	Derek Poundstone	Nick Best	Frankie Scheun	Melbourne, Australia
Giants Live-Hungary June 22, 2013^[24]	Mike Burke	Eddy Hall	Bjorn Andre Solvang	Budapest, Hungary
Giants Live-England June 29, 2013 Europe's Strongest Man 2013^[25]	Žydrūnas Savickas	Vytautas Lalas	Krzysztof Radzikowski	Leeds, England
Giants Live-Norway July 6, 2013 Nordic Championships 2013^[26]	Johannes Arsjo	Ole Martin Hansen	Juha Matti Jarvi	Norway
Giants Live-Poland Aug. 3, 2013^[27]	Vytautas Lalas	Krzysztof Radzikowski	Lauri Nami	Poland
Giants Live-Gateshead Aug. 3, 2013^[27]	Laurence Shahlaei	Jerry Pritchet	Terry Hollands	Gateshead,. England

References

External links

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