Il Più Forte

Thanks to CeleTheRef for alerting us to a show that I think is worthy of your time – Il Più Forte (The Strongest) which airs on the Italian version of Discovery’s DMAX.

In it rugby player Martin Castrogiovanni and MMA fighter Alessio Sakara tour Italy looking for everyday sorts of people who might be “the strongest”. The first ten minutes is them going round a city selecting eight people to compete and they’re whittled down to one in various tests of strength and endurance. Contestants earn 0.5kg balls in the tests with the lowest scorers giving their balls to other players, the finalist with the most balls gets specific training with one of the hosts for the final challenge.

The games are evidently a bit low budget (we do get “hanging from a tree” in this episode) and I’m not sure the scoring system is quite as clever as it looks on the surface. However the show is beautifully directed to really show off the locations and the hosts have got a terrific chemistry going on. There’s also a rather silly sense of humour streaking throughout the whole show (today a running visual gag with a watermelon, and the idea that challenges are derived by the rugby player ‘blindly choosing’ a tattooed finger of the MMA fighter, the contestants are referred to by wrestling-style nicknames). One of the great things about the Italians I’d suggest is that because they tend to be quite expressive it’s easier to derive meaning through body language and tone of voice so don’t be put off too much with the language barrier.

Also great news for fans of Italian men with beards.

Here’s a quick run down of the challenges in this first episode, to help you follow:

• Qualification challenge – Hold up buckets of milk arms outstretched. First two to have arms drop are eliminated.
• 1st challenge – the remaining six are paired up by putting their shirts in a bag and then getting drawn out. They race to completely push out a hay bale. Three balls for winning, two for running up, one for last place. Because there are two people in last place and one must be eliminated there is a tie break, the first to thread three needles, for reasons I have yet to discern, wins. The loser gives their ball to another player.
• 2nd challenge – the contestants have two minutes to find as many balls as they can in what looks like muck that’s been cleared out of a cowshed. Two players will be eliminated here, ties broken by having one ball chucked into the muck and competing players racing for it.
• 3rd challenge – The three contestants hang from a tree as long as possible but in a twist they will also have the sack with all the balls they’ve collected tied onto them, weighing them down further. The first to fall is eliminated giving their balls to the player of their choice. The person with the most balls at this point gets special training for the final.
• 4th challenge – Pulling a tractor. Whoever wins this is the winner.

I don’t know if there’s actually a prize or some sort of grand final.