After months of speculation and second-guessing, the U.S. competitors to the 2000 "World's Strongest Man" show have been officially invited.

Joining Mark Philippi and Phil Pfister will be Brian Schoonveld, Whit Baskin and John Perry. Schoonveld, Baskin and Perry earned their invitations by virtue of their performances yesterday at Jim Davis's American Showdown. Philippi and Pfister had already received invitations, based on their IFSA elite athlete status.

Strongman competitors and fans have been clamoring for an impartial qualification system that would allow the best athletes to advance to the top competitions, especially WSM, rather than allowing the selections to be made on what might appear to be subjective grounds. IFSA's Douglas Edmunds, Ph.D., who has played a pivotal role in taking the qualification system to new levels of fairness, was quick to praise Jim Davis for having justified IFSA's confidence in his ability to run a legitimate American qualifier for WSM.