Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) President Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa watched the strongest men from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) compete as the country's Strength Week concluded here.

Man mountains from the host nation were joined by competitors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates for the event which took place at a pop-up arena outside a luxury shopping mall.

Sheikh Khalid, a son of Bahrain's King Hamad, witnessed the strong men take on five different disciplines, the car yoke, log press, car leg press, max deadlift and power stairs.

It was part of Strength Week in the Kingdom which has also seen weightlifting, cross-fit, powerlifting and arm wrestling take place.

BOC secretary general Faris Al Kooheji explained how the event came into existence after it had previously been held with just Bahrain strong men.

"It was His Highness Sheikh Khalid's idea," he said.

"It was [the first event] a huge success, the community were very engaged.

"From there it just kept going and going and going.

"Then gradually we said 'why don't we also do GCC's Strongest Man to challenge ourselves among our neighbouring countries?'

"And after GCC's Strongest Man we said 'why not make it a Strength Week?'"

Al Kooheji said taking the event to the shopping mall here is a key part of it.

"Some people like to organise events in very remote areas but if you do that, you only get people that you invite or hardcore fans," he said.

"If you do it where there is already a lot of natural foot traffic, you get more engagement and more fans and they are already walking around and are like 'what's going on?'

"This is how you promote awareness, by going to the people, not going somewhere and expecting people to show up to you.

"We like to organise events where there is a very high density of foot traffic.

"On Olympic Day we did it inside the mall and got a very huge turnout."