April Highlights: international competitions and PRs

April turned out to be rich in international events in the weightlifting world. But there were also some exclusives from the training halls. Read on for details.

Switzerland hosted 1st IWF Street Weightlifting Championships

The competition was held in Lausanne in April. The main goal of the event is to popularize weightlifting and show the hard work of world-class athletes.

Seven teams participated in the competition: the national team of Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the international team (Great Britain and Colombia), Team Ambassador (Qatar and Malta). Each team included 1 man and 1 woman athlete, regardless of the categories.

Athletes competed in the snatch, then the clean and jerk. The scores were calculated using the ROBI (Round Robin) system. Each athlete made one attempt, and when the round was completed, he could make another attempt with a different weight.

According to the results of the competition, prizes were distributed as follows:

First Place-Team Ambassador – 891.9 ROBI.

Second Place-Team Italy – 810.9 ROBI.

Third Place-Team Germany – 807.3 ROBI.

2022 IWF Senior World Championships Coming to Colombia!

On April 23, following a secret vote, the IWF Executive Committee nominated Colombia as the new host country. It was planned that the competition will be held in China. But due to the difficult epidemiological situation in the country due to Covid-19, the Chinese Weightlifting Association (CWA) refused to organize the event.

President of the Colombian Weightlifting Federation William Peña promised to hold the best championship in the IWF history. Well, he has time until November to fulfill his promise.

Working two jobs

April 22 in The Hague (Netherlands) ended Invictus Games 2002 – a competition among active military personnel, retired, including the wounded and disabled. Competitions are held in ten disciplines: athletics, cycling, hand archery, indoor rowing, Land Rover Driving Challenge, weightlifting, wheelchair rugby, wheelchair basketball, swimming and sitting volleyball.

The Ukrainian team still managed to attend the competition, despite the war in the country. True, Our team doesn’t have a complete number of athletes. Some of them remained to defend Ukraine from Russian troops. Some of the participants in previous games died just a few weeks before the competition, and paramedic Yulia Paevskaya (Taira) is in captivity.

And despite the tragedy, the Ukrainian team won 16 awards: 5 gold, 5 silver and 6 bronze. This is only four awards less than at the previous competitions in 2018.

Training Records 

The championship road starts in the training halls. The training hall is where records are often set that will be repeated on the competition platform.

The unofficial world record in the clean and jerk was set by 17-year-old Bulgarian weightlifter Karlos Nasar, the 2021 world weightlifting champion. In April, he lifted 210 kilograms (462.9 pounds) at a bodyweight of 81 kg in training in April.

This is not the first time Nasar has set such a record during his traininbg, but for the first time he publishes it on his Instagram page. Great entry for the Junior World Championships (IWF) in Heraklion 2022, Greece.

When a man lifts three times his bodyweight, it’s amazing. When a child is a little shocking.

Two-time U.S. Youth Weightlifting (USAW) 30kg champion Rory van Ulft lifted 100kg (220.5 lbs) without a belt. A workout video of 9-year-old Rory doing a deadlift appeared on her page on April 6.

By the way, just seven months ago, Rory posted a video where she lifts 90 kg (198.4 pounds). The girl surprises not only with weight, but also with the speed of progress.

This was April 2022. What do you expect from May?