Man from Saskatoon becomes first Canadian to earn title of World’s Strongest Firefighter

A man from Saskatoon was recently crowned world’s strongest firefighter. Jasmine Pelletier reports.

A man from Saskatoon was recently crowned World’s Strongest Firefighter.

Evan Yaworski is the first Canadian to win the title.

“You spend so much time preparing for, you know, maybe five minutes of work over competition time,” said Yaworski. “When it pays off, at the end of the day, it’s pretty satisfying.”

This year, the competition for active-duty firefighters was held March 6 and 7 at the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, Ohio, and included more than 100 competitors.

The Saskatoon-born Yaworski advanced to the finals after placing first in the lightweight class and completed a total of nine events over the two-day competition.

“It’s not always just for big guys, right?” said Yaworski. “There’s weight classes for a reason. There’s a ton of weight class athletes in Canada, and I’m the first lightweight to win the world firefighter title.”

One of the flashier events in the finals required Yaworski to pull a firetruck 50 feet.

“The way I think about strongman is, you just be generally strong, and then you can learn the skills for specific events when you need to,” he explained.

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Yaworski has a background in Olympic weightlifting and jiu-jitsu and said he initially decided to start competing in strongman events at the suggestion of a friend.

“I was having a lull between sports at one point, and a friend at the gym just told me I’d probably be good at it. So, I just signed up on a whim and I was doing well. I just kept having opportunities and now I’m here.”

Yaworski, who now lives in Manitoba, plans to compete at the 2026 Strongman Games World Championship and will be back in action for next year’s World’s Strongest Firefighter competition.

The strongman events website says that over the past five years, the World’s Strongest Firefighter competition has raised over $300,000 for the CAL FIRE Benevolent Foundation, the Santa Monica Firefighters Relief Fund, and the Columbus Firefighters Foundation.