Polish Strongman Federation President Jarek Dymek told IronMind® today that this weekend's contests, besides featuring some of the world's top competitors, is significant in terms of drawing together key players as the sport moves forward in 2006.

Headlining the Europe's Strongest Woman contest are World's Strongest Woman winner Aneta Florczyk (Poland) and Heini Koivuniemi (Finland), and the women will be alternating events with the men, who compete in the Poland Versus The World contest.

The men's competition continues the tradition of pitting a four-man Polish team, headed by Mariusz Pudzianowski, against four top international strongmen. This year's world team comprises Svend Karlsen (Norway), Janne Virtanen (Finland), Odd Haugen (Norway) and Jesse Marunde. Pudzianowski, Karlsen and Virtanen have all won the coveted World's Strongest Man title, and Marunde was this year's runner-up, so this underlines the quality of the field competing this weekend Dymek said.