Massive Powerlifting in Australia

I spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday grabbing glimpses of the CAPO Australian powerlifting in Hobart. Most of the interest for this event was generated by the guest lifters Brandon Lilly, Sam Byrd, Lilliebridge etc side by side with our own monsters like Odell. I definitely enjoyed this section of the live feed.

What continues to freak me out though is the speed of true raw lifting. Watching some of the guys go raw into the hole was amazing (hmm that doesn't sound right does it?!), the speed of their decent and then drive out of the bottom was fantastic to see. Not the slow equipped 'back back back' shit I hear so often. It's probably why Olympic lifting is such a good spectator sport.

What was interesting was some of the live feed comments by those logged into the feed. Now apart from a couple of ass bandits who hijacked much of the feed with really inane commentary (no doubt teenage boys) it was interesting to see many of the North American guys thought the show was of a good standard. Though it must be remembered that given the enormous number of feds so many shows are 'high school hall' events run on a shoestring budget.

However here are a couple of observations for 'other' championship organisers. These are in no way intended to disparage the effort to stage this event but hey if you don't learn from each outing then whats the point? So I took the opportunity to discuss it with an events manager friend of mine and my thoughts are:

First if you have a fringe sport ( yes we are and I am ok with that) don't hire an 'iconic' venue if you can't fill it! Empty seats don't look good on the live stream and they take away from the atmosphere. Now in this instance I can understand the desire to be part of a sports expo but unless you are in the main pavilion with enormous amounts of passing traffic then it just isn't worth it.

Second, have a very good stage runner who understands the sport and can keep the 'show' on track. That means the show shouldn't stop for 5 mins with the MC having to ad lib because a 'ref' went missing. It means the main live feed shouldn't stop because a stage person decides to position themselves in front of the camera.

Also having experienced both I much prefer a show that puts on music during the lifting. Done well with the appropriate MC it really adds to the event and more importantly maintains a level of atmosphere during any unforeseen delays.

The most important thing following this event is to enjoy the result then get some feedback on what didn't work and feed that into subsequent events. Fuck-ups occur and are often unavoidable however making the same mistake a second time is poor form so its important to learn from it.

Overall it was amazing to see the big boys from the US lifting down-under. Lets hope for 2014 both GPC and CAPO learn from there respective events this year and put on even bigger and better shows.


Stay Strong
Thomo