The championships were organised by David Webster, OBE of Scotland, who still conducts them.

A roll of past competitors includes many of the World's greatest strength athletes with Olympic finalists, World Record Holders, Commonwealth Games medal winners, Guinness Book of Record entrants, physique champions, continental & national titleholders, World's Strongest Men and International legends in various sports.

[1] The World Highland Games Championships consist of traditional events and are in this sense differentiated from many of the other international strength athletic competitions, including the Highlander World Championships.

Over the years competitors have been drawn from the disciplines of field athletics, including the shot put, discus and hammer throw, as well as strength athletes and dedicated Highland Games specialists.

In the first three decades of the competition there have been thirteen champions, with four men each having won the title five times, Geoff Capes, Jim McGoldrick, Ryan Vierra and Matt Sandford, and one of those, Geoff Capes, having also won the 1981 World Highland Games Championships held in Lagos, which would make him six times world champion, although this is not listed on the official website.