World’s Strongest Man in Myrtle Beach: Everything You Need to Know

There is a particular kind of electricity that settles over the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk when the World’s Strongest Man rolls into town. The ocean is right there, doing what it always does — steady, indifferent, blue-gray to the horizon. And then, a few feet away on a competition stage built directly into the boardwalk, a man the size of a refrigerator picks up a 400-pound atlas stone and places it on a platform like it is something he has done a thousand times. Because he has. And the crowd on the South Carolina sand goes absolutely wild.

The World’s Strongest Man competition — now nearly five decades old and broadcast in over 100 countries — has found something of a second home here on the Grand Strand. Myrtle Beach hosted the event in 2023 and 2024, welcomed it back for 2026, and each time the result has been the same: thousands of fans, elite athletes from across the globe, and a setting that no stadium venue could replicate. The boardwalk, the ocean, the April sun, the salt in the air. It is unlike anywhere else the competition has been held, and the organizers know it.

Whether you are a longtime strongman fan who knows every competitor’s backstory, or a vacationer who stumbled onto the event while walking the boardwalk and found yourself unable to leave, this guide covers everything worth knowing about the World’s Strongest Man in Myrtle Beach — the history, the athletes, the events, and how to make the most of a long weekend on the Grand Strand while the strongest men in the world are in town.

What Is the World’s Strongest Man Competition?

The World’s Strongest Man began in 1977 as a television event — a simple, slightly ridiculous idea that turned out to be brilliant. What if you gathered the largest, most powerful human beings on the planet, gave them a series of physically outrageous tasks, and broadcast the whole spectacle to the world? The answer, it turned out, was that people loved it. The event drew its first audiences on CBS in America and quickly became a fixture of international sports broadcasting.

In the nearly five decades since, the competition has grown into the premier event in strength athletics, with a global audience now exceeding 220 million viewers and a roster of champions that reads like a mythology of human capability. The format has evolved, the athletes have grown bigger and stronger, and the events have become more demanding — but the core premise remains unchanged. Find out who is the strongest man on earth. Do it outdoors. Make it look epic.

The competition is organized and produced by IMG, the global sports marketing agency, in partnership with Giants Live. It travels to different host cities each year — past venues have included locations across Zambia, Iceland, Malaysia, Morocco, China, and numerous American cities — and the 2026 edition marks its 49th running. Twenty-five athletes are invited based on their results over the prior competitive season, divided into qualifying groups over the first two days, with the top ten advancing to a two-day final.

How Myrtle Beach Became a WSM Destination

Myrtle Beach first hosted the World’s Strongest Man in 2023, and the fit was immediately obvious to anyone who was there. The oceanfront at Burroughs & Chapin Pavilion Place — right on the boardwalk at 9th Avenue North — offered something most competition venues simply cannot: scale, scenery, and a natural amphitheater effect. The Atlantic Ocean sits at the athletes’ backs during the finals. The boardwalk runs alongside the course. The crowd surrounds the action on three sides, pressed close enough to feel the effort radiating off the competitors.

The city itself contributed the rest. Myrtle Beach knows how to host large-scale events — the Grand Strand has long been home to some of the biggest tourism draws on the East Coast, from the Carolina Country Music Festival to the Harley-Davidson Spring Rally — and the infrastructure to support tens of thousands of visitors was already in place. Hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues, the boardwalk itself. The city absorbed the event and its fans the way it absorbs everything: with warm Southern hospitality and a full calendar of distractions for anyone who needed a break from watching trucks get pulled across a course by a man named Rayno.

The partnership with Visit Myrtle Beach has been central to the relationship. The destination marketing organization has co-produced the event with IMG since 2023, and the alignment has been mutually beneficial. The competition adds an internationally broadcast event that puts Myrtle Beach in front of a global audience. The destination provides the setting, the hospitality infrastructure, and the crowd energy that has become part of the event’s identity.

2023: Mitchell Hooper Wins the First Myrtle Beach WSM

The 46th World’s Strongest Man ran from April 19 to 23, 2023 — the competition’s first appearance on the Grand Strand. Thirty athletes competed, and the man who emerged with the title was Mitchell Hooper of Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Hooper had made his WSM debut just the year before, finishing in second place. In Myrtle Beach, he made no such concession, winning four of six events in the final to claim his first world championship.

Hooper’s victory made him the first Canadian to win the World’s Strongest Man title. Two-time defending champion Tom Stoltman of Scotland finished second, and 2020 champion Oleksii Novikov of Ukraine placed third. The competition on the boardwalk was broadcast later that summer on CBS Sports Network in the United States, introducing the Myrtle Beach venue to the show’s massive television audience.

2024: Tom Stoltman Claims His Third Title in Myrtle Beach

The 2024 World’s Strongest Man returned to the same Myrtle Beach venue in May, and this time it was Tom Stoltman who took the title. The Scottish strongman — known to fans as The Albatross for his towering 6-foot-8 frame — dominated the final to claim his third WSM championship, joining an elite group of men who have lifted the trophy that many times. Defending champion Mitchell Hooper placed second, and American Evan Singleton — a former professional wrestler competing under the nickname T-Rex — finished third.

Stoltman’s 2024 victory in Myrtle Beach cemented the city’s place in WSM history. Two editions, two different champions, both crowned with the Atlantic as a backdrop. The competition did not return to the Grand Strand in 2025 — that year’s event moved to Sacramento, California, where South African rookie Rayno Nel pulled off one of the more stunning upsets the sport had seen in decades, becoming the first first-year competitor to win the title since 1997. But the boardwalk was never far from the organizers’ minds.

2026: The World’s Strongest Man Returns to the Grand Strand

The 49th World’s Strongest Man runs April 23–26, 2026, at the oceanfront at Burroughs & Chapin Pavilion Place. It is the third time Myrtle Beach has hosted the event, and the return speaks to a relationship that has clearly worked well for both the competition and the city. Qualifying rounds take place on Thursday and Friday, with the top ten finishers advancing to the championship finals on Saturday and Sunday.

The competition is presented this year as the SBD World’s Strongest Man, with title sponsorship from SBD, a leading manufacturer of strength training equipment and apparel. Reserved general admission seating is available around the main stage for the four-day event, produced in partnership with Visit Myrtle Beach.

The Events: What Competitors Actually Do

Part of what makes the World’s Strongest Man so watchable — and so magnetic in person — is the variety of the events. This is not a single-discipline test. The competition is designed to expose weakness, to find the one man who is not only the strongest but the most complete across disciplines that range from raw explosive power to static endurance.

The 2026 qualifying events include the Farmer’s Walk into Power Stairs — a test in which athletes carry heavy implements across a course before tackling a staircase — the Overhead Circus Medley, Squat for Reps, the Truck Pull, and a stone-off to determine who advances to the final. The championship final on Saturday and Sunday adds a Deadlift for Reps event and closes with the Atlas Stones, the iconic sequence of increasingly heavy spherical stones that competitors must hoist over a series of platforms. The Atlas Stones have ended more than a few title runs.

Among the events that have defined the competition over the years, the Hercules Hold holds a special place in the hearts of spectators. Athletes grip chains attached to two 160-kilogram pillars, one on either side of them, and must hold the pillars upright for as long as possible. There is no movement, no technique to refine — just grip, pain, and willpower. The Keg Toss sends huge metal containers arcing over a 15-foot bar. The Bus Pull does exactly what its name suggests. These are not events that require much explanation. The crowd always understands immediately.

The Athletes to Watch in 2026

The 2026 field of 25 is headlined by four men who have held the title before, which makes for a particularly compelling narrative heading into the Myrtle Beach finals.

Rayno Nel of South Africa arrives as the defending champion after his shocking 2025 Sacramento victory. Nel became the first rookie to win the World’s Strongest Man since 1997, edging out a loaded field by half a point in one of the closest finishes in recent memory. He is still in only his second WSM appearance, but the strength of his 2025 performance — and the depth of his event record since — makes him the favorite heading into qualifying.

Tom Stoltman returns hunting a fourth world title, which would place him alongside legends such as Magnús Ver Magnússon, Jón Páll Sigmarsson, Žydrūnas Savickas, and Brian Shaw. The Scottish giant — the first athlete with autism to win the WSM — arrived in 2026 in sharp form after winning Britain’s Strongest Man, and Myrtle Beach has been good to him before. His 2024 final here was among the most commanding performances of his career.

Mitchell Hooper of Canada is perhaps the most technically complete strongman in the world right now. The 2023 Myrtle Beach champion has won four consecutive Arnold Classic titles, multiple Rogue Invitationals, and Shaw Classics — his record outside of the WSM is almost without parallel. The world title remains the one thing his resume is missing since 2023, and returning to the boardwalk where he first won it gives his 2026 campaign a certain narrative weight.

Martins Licis, the 2019 champion from the United States, rounds out the former champions in the field. American fans will also be watching Evan Singleton — T-Rex, the former WWE wrestler who placed third at the 2024 Myrtle Beach finals — as well as Trey Mitchell, a static powerhouse capable of dominating any deadlift-based event, and Eddie Williams of Australia, who has built a devoted following with his charismatic performances on the competition floor.

Fan Fest: How to Experience WSM Without a Competition Ticket

Competition tickets for the 2026 event are sold out. If you do not already have one, the reserved seating around the main stage is not accessible — but that does not mean you are locked out of the experience. The fan fest area adjacent to the competition course is free and open to all spectators throughout the weekend, and it is genuinely worth the trip on its own.

The free zone features local food trucks and food stands, merchandise vendors, interactive sponsor booths, and — critically — athlete meet-and-greet sessions. This is your opportunity to stand a few feet away from some of the largest human beings you will ever encounter in person. The athletes at the WSM level are not merely strong; they are a different physical category from most professional athletes. Seeing that scale in real life, on the boardwalk, on a warm April afternoon, is its own kind of memorable.

The atmosphere around the boardwalk during WSM weekend extends well beyond the venue itself. The surrounding Myrtle Beach Boardwalk area — which runs from 14th Avenue South to 2nd Avenue North and is lined with restaurants, shops, and amusement attractions — absorbs the energy of the event for the full four days. If you are spending the week at a rental in the area, this stretch of the city is worth visiting for the ambient energy alone, even apart from the competition itself.

Burroughs & Chapin Pavilion Place

The venue at the center of it all — Burroughs & Chapin Pavilion Place, located at 812 North Ocean Boulevard — carries a particular weight in Myrtle Beach history. The Burroughs & Chapin name is inseparable from the development of modern Myrtle Beach; the company’s origins go back to the late 19th century, and it was this family of businesses that built the original Myrtle Beach Pavilion amusement park on this same oceanfront site in the early 20th century. A succession of four pavilion structures stood on or near this location from 1902 until the amusement park’s closure in 2006, and the open-air event space that exists today carries that legacy of public gathering.

Today the space hosts major outdoor events year-round, including the Carolina Country Music Festival each June. For the World’s Strongest Man, the open layout is transformed into a full competition venue: elevated stage, competition course, spectator seating, sponsor activations, and the fan fest zone — all arranged with the Atlantic Ocean as the permanent backdrop. It is one of the more unusual settings in all of professional sports, and that is the point.

Planning Your Trip Around WSM Weekend

Late April is one of the finest times to visit the Grand Strand. The Atlantic is not quite warm enough for extended swimming, but the weather is consistently beautiful — sunny, mild, and free of the summer crowds that descend on the coast from Memorial Day onward. The boardwalk is alive but not overwhelming. Restaurant waits are manageable. The beach is uncrowded in a way it almost never is from June through August.

Guests based in Cherry Grove Beach or Ocean Drive in North Myrtle Beach are approximately a 15-minute drive south from Burroughs & Chapin Pavilion Place — close enough to make an afternoon trip to the fan fest and be back in time for dinner. Those staying in Crescent Beach or Windy Hill are similarly well-positioned.

If you are building a full weekend itinerary around WSM, the mornings and early afternoons while qualifying heats run are a good time to be on the beach or exploring the broader area. The competition stage energy ramps up through the afternoon and into the evening, and the fan fest tends to be most active when athletes cycle through for their meet-and-greet sessions. Check the official schedule at theworldsstrongestman.com for session times as the weekend approaches.

Parking near the boardwalk fills quickly on event days. The city has parking garages on 9th Avenue North and along Ocean Boulevard, but arriving early or taking a rideshare from your rental property will make the day considerably easier. The walk along the boardwalk from several of the nearby public access points is itself a pleasant way to arrive at the venue.

Frequently Asked Questions