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1977 World's Strongest Man

Strongman competition in 1977

Field	Value
competition_name	1977 World's Strongest Man
dates	1977
venue	Universal Studios
location	Los Angeles, California
country	USA
athletes participating	8
nations participating	2
winner	USA Bruce Wilhelm
next	Hollywood 1978

The 1977 World's Strongest Man was the 1st edition of World's Strongest Man and was held at the Universal Studios, California and took place over ten weeks. The title was won by Bruce Wilhelm from the United States. It was his first title. Bob Young from the United States finished second, and Ken Patera also from the United States third.

Background

Originally commissioned by Trans World International for CBS, the concept for the World's Strongest Man event came from Scots David P. Webster and Douglas Edmunds. Webster had earned himself a name as an event organiser through his involvement with the Highland games, while Edmunds had experience in professional shot put, discus, and caber tossing. The event was mostly developed for entertainment purposes.

With no precedent for a worldwide 'Strongman' competition, the concept of a strongman competitor and event was new, and as such, the competitors came from a wide range of existing disciplines, including American football, powerlifting and track and field. This meant that none of the competitors had ever trained for the events taking place during the competition.

In addition, several of the events in which the athletes competed were poorly thought out or dangerous, as evidenced when Italian Franco Columbu fell during the penultimate event, the Fridge Race, dislocating his knee, forcing him to retire and putting him out of action for three years. The fridge carry was not reintroduced to the competition until 2004, with a crossbar added to stabilise two fridges on either side of the athlete.

Qualification

Qualification to the event was by invite only 'on the recommendation of experts.'

Line-Up

Name	Nationality	Age	Profession	Notable Accolades
Jon Cole	USA	34	Weightlifter	AAU US National Powerlifting Champion: 1968, 1970, 1972
Franco Columbu	Italy	34	Bodybuilder	Mr. Olympia: 1976
Mike Dayton	USA	29	Stuntman	Teen Mr. America: 1967
Lou Ferrigno	USA	26	Bodybuilder	IFBB Mr. Universe: 1973, 1974
George Frenn	USA	36	Hammer Thrower	1971 Pan American Games, Hammer Throw: Silver
Ken Patera	USA	34	Weightlifter	1971 Pan American Games, Weightlifting: Gold
Bruce Wilhelm	USA	31	Weightlifter	AAU US Super Heavyweight Weightlifting Champion: 1975, 1976
Bob Young	USA	35	American Footballer	None at the time of the competition.

Results

#	Name	Nationality	TOTAL
1	Bruce Wilhelm	USA	63.25
2	Bob Young	USA	43.25
3	Ken Patera	USA	34
4	Lou Ferrigno	USA	27.5
5	Franco Columbu	ITA	23.25
6	Jon Cole	USA	21.5
7	Mike Dayton	USA	19.25
8	George Frenn	USA	10

References

"theworldsstrongestman.com".
HITstrongman. (2014-06-07). "1977 World's Strongest Man".
(2010). "Testing for the World's Strongest Man". Iron Game History.
Heffernan, Conor. (2015-04-15). "1977 and the birth of the World’s Strongest Man".
Siem, Brooke. (2016-07-06). "The 1977 World's Strongest Man Is the Greatest Thing Since Sliced SPAM - BarBend". BarBend.
(2015-06-02). "The Worlds Strongest Man Classics 1977 - Franco Columbu's tragic fridge race". World's Strongest Man.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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