LOUIS CYR: THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD

 

 

Louis Cyr (1863-1912) was a famous French Canadian strongman with a career spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

His recorded feats, including lifting 500 pounds with three fingers and carrying 4,337 pounds on his back, show Cyr to be, according to former International Federation of BodyBuilding & Fitness chairman Ben Weider, the strongest man ever to have lived.

Here is the trailer for the film based on Louis Cyr’s Life!

Early Years

Cyr was born in Saint-Cyprien-de-Napierville, Quebec, Canada. From the age of twelve Cyr worked in a lumber camp during the winters and on the family’s farm the rest of the year. Discovering his exceptional strength at a very young age, he impressed his fellow workers with his feats of strength. He had learned of the story of how a legendary strongman (Milo of Croton) had carried a calf from birth to a full grown bull and attempted to do the same, one day the calf bolted, kicking him in his back so he then began carrying a sack of grain 1⁄4 miles (0.40 km) everyday adding 2 pounds each day. According to one of his biographers, his mother decided “he should let his hair grow, like Samson in the Bible.” She curled it regularly.

In 1878 the Cyr family immigrated to Lowell, Massachusetts in the United States. It was in Lowell that Cyr changed his name from Cyprien-Noé to Louis, as it was easier to pronounce in English. Again his great strength brought him fame. At seventeen he weighed 230 pounds. He entered his first strongman contest in Boston at age eighteen, lifting a horse off the ground, the fully grown male horse was placed on a platform with 2 iron bars attached enabling Cyr to obtain a better grip. The horse weighed at least 3⁄4 short tons (0.68 t).

Rise to fame

Cyr returned to Quebec in 1883 with his family and was married. The following year he and his wife returned to Lowell, hoping to capitalize on his fame there. A tour of The Maritimes was organized, and while it may have benefited the organizer, Cyr gained no profit financially. He then began touring Quebec with his family in a show they called “The Troupe Cyr”.

From 1883 to 1885, Cyr served as a police officer in Montreal. Following this he went on tour with a troupe that included a wrestler, a boxer and a weightlifter. He entered a strongman competition in March, 1886 at Quebec City, against the reigning Canadian strongman, David Michaud. Cyr lifted a 218-pound barbell with one hand (to Michaud’s 158 pounds) and a weight of 2,371 pounds on his back, to his opponent’s 2,071 pounds to win the title of strongest man in the country.

Reputation as a strongman

While several of Cyr’s feats of strength may have been exaggerated over the years, some were documented and remain impressive. These included lifting a platform on his back holding 18 men, lifting a 534-pound weight with one finger and pushing a freight car up an incline. He also beat Eugen Sandow’s bent press record (and therefore the heaviest weight lifted with one hand) by 2 pounds to a total of 273 pounds.

Perhaps his greatest feat occurred in 1895, when he was reported to have lifted 4,337 pounds on his back in Boston by putting 18 men on a platform and lifting them. One of his most memorable displays of strength occurred in Montreal on October 12, 1891: Louis resisted the pull of four draught horses (two in each hand) as grooms stood cracking their whips to get the horses to pull harder. A feat he again demonstrated in Bytown (now Ottawa) with Queen Victoria’s team of draught horses during her ‘Royal’ visit.

While in Bytown (Ottawa) he volunteered with the police when they took deputees to round up a local gang of miscreants, they turned him away claiming he would be too slow due to his bulk. He challenged the regular officers to a foot race, beating the majority and they took him on.

Legacy

Monument to Louis Cyr by Robert Pelletier in Place des Hommes-Forts in Montreal