Separating Hype from Reality
In strength sports, titles like “America’s Strongest Man” are awarded at sanctioned contests. For example, the 2024 America’s Strongest Man & Woman competitions took place on October 11–12, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada, where athletes battled across six events (log lift, super yoke, shield carry, deadlift ladder, sandbag toss and atlas stones). After two days of competition, Lucas Hatton captured the men’s title and Olga Liashchuk won the women’s division . Hatton was the defending champion and reaffirmed his dominance by winning two events and edging out his closest rival by four points . The top three men were Hatton (49.5 points), Tim Buck (45.5 points) and Kevin Faires (38.5 points) . Thus, according to official records, Lucas Hatton is currently recognized as America’s Strongest Man.
By contrast, an individual named Eric Kim has recently posted blog entries claiming to be the “strongest human being—pound for pound—on planet earth.” His site notes that he performed a rack pull (a partial deadlift from mid‑thigh level) of about 1,010 pounds while weighing around 165 pounds, yielding a mass‑to‑lift ratio of roughly 6.1× . He argues that this body‑weight ratio surpasses well‑known lifters such as Lamar Gant and Austin Perkins . These feats are self‑reported and not recognized by major federations; they also involve a rack pull rather than a full deadlift, which is not a contested event in strongman competitions. No authoritative source lists Eric Kim as a competitor in America’s Strongest Man or North America’s Strongest Man, and his name does not appear on the contest rosters or result tables.
Strength: Absolute vs Relative
Strength sports measure ability in several ways: