Masters Bench Press Team Succeeds On and Off the Platform By Nectar Kirkiris The 3rd annual Masters Bench Press Championships were held in Nymburk, Czech Republic on April 16-20, 2003. Nymburk is a quaint town on the River Elbe about 35 miles west of Prague with approximately 15,000 inhabitants. Of all the former Eastern block nations, the Czech Republic has adapted the fastest to western European standards with a fast growing economy and an increasing standard of living for its citizens. English is a very common language in the Czech Republic, which is spoken by many of its citizens, especially those under 30, which made communicating with the locals quite easy. The people in general were quite friendly and very helpful throughout our stay. This was my second trip to Eastern Europe and both times I have been quite pleasantly surprised. The cities are very beautiful, the people very friendly and the women drop-dead gorgeous. Add to that the fact that you can get a great tasting pint of beer for less than 50 cents and I sometimes felt as though I was living in a beer commercial. The trip got off to a bit of a rocky start as the US team along with the Canadians, Finns and British were bumped out of our primary hotel and instead had to stay in the hotel at the Sports Center. As a child growing up during the latter parts of the Cold War, I often wondered what it must have been like for Eastern block athletes to live and train in the Spartan and uninviting conditions of Soviet style training complexes. This trip answered all of those questions. Although the accommodations were below what we are typically accustomed to in the US, everyone on the team adapted very well to them and they became a source of humor for us during our stay. I would especially like to thank Jiri Hofirek and his lovely staff, Eliska, Jana, et al for all their help and hard work in accommodating our team. On the bright side, the lifting venue was a very short walk from our rooms as was the hotel bar, which was the site of several memorable moments, such as Helen Sauer showing us that she has other talents beyond powerlifting. The only major complaint of the whole week had to do with the cost of the transportation to/from the airport and the hotel rooms. There has been a trend in recent years at IPF meets where people are charged western rates in non-western countries. This often results in two to three times markup in prices over regular rates in these nations. As someone who has helped organize national and international competition, I am the first one to defend the right of a meet director to make a profit for organizing such a large competition. However, it is becoming evident to myself and others within USAPL and the IPF that something needs to be done to limit the amount of markup that the meet promoters are allowed when they host world championships. This topic was actually brought up during the technical meeting and received quite a bit of support from the coaches and team managers in attendance. It was finally decided that the more appropriate place for discussing this topic was the NGB meeting that occurs before Men's worlds in November. I truly hope the IPF follows up on this otherwise I will feel obligated to find lodging for our team outside of the specified meet hotels for future contests. The lifting took place in a large hall with a large stage on the back end. There was a curtained off prep area for the lifters which provided access to the stage via 3 steps. The warm up room was located in a separate room next to the venue. This presented some problems in terms of communication between the head coach, who is typically near the scorer's table, and the assistant coaches, who spend much of their time in the warm up room or away from the main stage. This problem was solved through the use of Motorola Talkabout radios, which were used by the coaching staff throughout the competition. This made it very easy to communicate to change opening attempts or inform lifters warming up on how much time they had as well as saving the coaches much time and effort in needing to walk around to locate each other. I highly recommend using similar technology to coaching staffs for other world teams since you never know what the layout will be until you arrive. The spotters and loaders did a fantastic job and kept the competition moving at a very fast pace. With nearly 900 attempts in this competition, there wasn't a single misloaded bar. The hand-off people all appeared to be quite good and could understand the lifters instructions for the handoff. The biggest problem I saw up on the platform is that the bar seemed to be quite whippy for weights over 500lbs. An Ivanko bar was used for this competition and I must say that I am quite disappointed with the performance of these bars especially given their cost. Now on to a favorite topic of discussion after IPF competitions…the judging. After seeing the results from the open Bench Press World Championships last November in Luxembourg, there was quite a bit of concern coming into this meet regarding the officiating. I can honestly say that the overall judging at this contest was the most impartial that I have witnessed at any IPF meet that I have attended. There were some bad calls as to be expected. However, they seemed to be quite random in nature and more surprisingly, the jury was quite responsive in overruling a few calls and awarding 4th attempts. This was quite a welcomed change from other years and I believe a major reason for this was the conduct and sportsmanship shown by the US team, which I will describe in more detail shortly. There were a couple new points that appeared to be emphasized a little more by the judges in this competition. The first was the enforcement of requiring the bar to touch the chest (lower part of the sternum), rather than the abs for the lift to be legal. This point was emphasized during the technical meeting and I witnessed 2 lifts turned down as a result of it. The second was the emphasis that the bar must remain motionless on the chest for a visible pause. This resulted in quite a few lifts being turned down because even though the bar appeared to be resting on the chest for a very long pause, it wasn't motionless. This made it quite difficult for me to call press commands for some lifters with very tight shirts as I not only had to be patient and wait for the bar to touch the chest but also had to ensure that it was motionless before giving the press command. The final infraction that got many lifters was the uneven extension interpretation. This rule again appeared to me to be over interpreted and outside of the scope of the actual intent of the rule. However, most of our lifters seemed to adapt quite well to it and it seemed to be called fairly consistently throughout the competition. For the third year in a row, I had the pleasure of being on the coaching staff with head coach, Kevin Farley. Kevin is fantastic at calling lifters numbers and does an excellent job of maximizing the placement of our lifters. Given the intensity of IPF competition and the fast pace of the meet, it is hard to imagine that anyone can keep their concentration for such long periods of time without making mental errors as Kevin does. Joining us this year as a new addition to our coaching staff was Chris Hughes, who is a training partner of Gip Duggan out in Colorado. In addition to being a national level powerlifter, Chris is an avid skier and at one time was nationally ranked in that sport as well. His personality and hard work for us throughout the week was invaluable toward our success and we hope he can join us again in future competitions. As positive as this competition was for all of us, we went through it with our thoughts and prayers on Micah "The Shirt Guy" Geraghty. Micah was in a very serious car accident one week before our departure for Nymburk and as a result, is facing a long and difficult road to recovery. Those of you that have been involved with the bench press world teams over the past few years have seen Micah drenched in sweat on numerous occasions as he puts on shirt after shirt for anyone that needs some assistance. In appreciation of all he has done for USA Powerlifting and our wishes for his speedy recovery, we had Fred Dini accept one of the team first place awards to bring back and present to Micah. Get well wishes can be sent to Micah at: Micah Geraghty, .76 Banks Lane, Germantown, New York 12526 At every Masters Bench Press World Championships, I hear many compliments from foreign lifters and officials in regards to the organization, efficiency and ultimate performance of our team. A major reason for this is that although the competition is based upon the performance of the individual, everyone of our lifters goes into the competition knowing that they have the full support of not only coaching staff, but of the entire team in ensuring that they know when to weigh in, when to warm up and when to approach the platform to lift. When it is time to compete, the only thing our lifters need to think about is lifting. This unified team approach has lead to tremendous success of the US team on the platform. However, when competing in an international competition, such as this, performance and conduct off the platform also plays a very important role in how the team performs on the platform. When putting on a USAPL uniform and lifting in an IPF competition, you are not only a representative of USA Powerlifting, but also an ambassador of the United States. Given the war and political climate in the world entering this competition, there was quite a bit of concern regarding how our team would be treated in the Czech Republic. However, the character, class and sportsmanship shown by this team quickly won over hearts and minds of all competitors, officials and staff at this competition. I don't think I have ever had the pleasure of being associated with a nicer group of people in my life. Everyone in USA Powerlifting should be very proud of the conduct of this team abroad. Our lifters were dignified in victory and gracious in defeat. We were just as quick and eager to help an opponent put on their bench shirt, as we were for one of our own. By the end of the competition, the amount of camaraderie and friendship we had built up with the other competitors was beyond description. Heck, we were even exchanging rounds of drinks with the French! I truly feel that this played a major role in the amount of fair and unbiased officiating that occurred during the competition. As for the performance of the team, it was absolutely spectacular given the adversity that was overcome to get to this competition. In addition to loosing Micah and having to scramble to find a replacement, there seemed to be a much higher percentage of injuries than in other years among the lifters. Typically we expect to loose about 4-5 lifters each year due to injury from the master's bench press team. This year we lost about 10. There has been some discussion that this may be partly due to the use of better bench shirts, which allow the lifters to handle more weight. However, with only one year's worth of data, I don't think any real conclusions can be drawn. There was also a lot of concern among many lifters about the prospects of flying overseas while the war in Iraq was ongoing. Indeed, there were moments when I thought this team was going to disintegrate and I even privately contemplated the possibility of withdrawing the US team from this competition. However, the quick victory by coalition forces and the realization that there were a quarter of a million US troops fighting to ensure that Americans can travel abroad without fear of harm brought this team together and focused us on the task at hand. This resulted in this team winning a total of 13 gold medals, 4 silver and 6 bronzes. 66 percent of our lifters ended up medalling in this competition with more than a third winning the gold. This resulted in winning the team gold in the men's masters 1 and 3, team silver in the women's master 1 and 2 and the team bronze in the men's master 2 class. If it weren't for a couple of mishaps in the men's master 2, which resulted in only having 5 out of the possible 7 total lifters counted in the final team standings, we would have also won the team gold in that as well. Many of our gold medal victories were among some of the best performances of the competition with Helen Sauer winning second best lifter in the women's masters 2, Bill Phillips and Jim Bourisaw winning first and second best lifter respectively for the men's masters 3, Pat Dennis winning third best lifter in the men's master 2 and the US sweeping the top 3 best lifter placements with Brad Klinger, Ralph Young and Dan Gudreau finishing first through third in the master 1's. In fact, only 5 one hundredth's of a Wilks point separated Brad and Ralph. It's a good thing that Brad didn't eat all those cakes that Kevin Hutchinson was offering him during the week in trying to fatten him up to move him up to SHWs. The lifting got started of with the women master 2 taking the platform in the first session on Thursday. Jeanne Harms was our first lifter of the competition and took the stage lifting in the 123's but, had a rough day and could not get any of her lifts in. Jeanne is still fairly new to powerlifting and is having a lot of trouble find a bench shirt that works for her. Once she figures that out, she is capable of medalling in this competition. She brought her husband, Steve, along who was very helpful in the warm-up room all week. Helen Sauer moved up from the master 1's, where she dominated and continued her dominance in the 132's by setting the world record on her opener and then breaking it on her third attempt. Eula Compton took 4th in a deepest and toughest class of the women's master 2's. Eula has shown steady improvement in her lifting and provided t-shirts for our team for this competition. Donna Steele of Plainwell, Michigan took the silver in the 165's on a solid 2/3 performance and has shown that she is very capable of performing under pressure at the international level in the past few year. Also, if she should ever decide to pursue a career in professional wrestling sometime in the future, she won't have to worry about using a fake stage name. Susan King finished off this class by winning the gold on a 1/3 performance. After a slight lack of concentration got her first attempt turned down due to the bar not being motionless, she came back for a strong successful second attempt and then took a very big 22lbs jump on her third for the American record but, just missed locking it out. Overall, the women's masters 2's earned 48 team points which was only 1 point behind the Germans for first place. The women's master 1 had Diane Siveny lifting in the 123's. After appearing very sluggish on her first 2 attempst, a shirt change allowed Diane to get her third attempt easily but, this lift was initially turned down due to Diane's glutes being off the bench. However, because the head judge did not see the side judges with their arms raised, which should have resulted in him telling Diane to re-rack the bar before giving her the start command, the jury decided to award Diane a 4th attempt, which she successfully made and earned her 4th place behind gold medallist, Toni Hollis of Great Britain, who enjoyed a significant mechanical advantage over her competition. The 132's saw Angela Simons and Brenda Howard both taking the platform. Angela turned in a solid 2/3 performance for the bronze in this very tough class while Brenda had a perfect 3/3 day, which was good enough for 5th. Brenda's husband, Steve Howard, who is the meet director for seniors this summer, was very helpful all weekend in the warm up room and did a significant amount of officiating during the competition. The winner of this class and best lifter overall was Danielle Taret of France. This is the third consecutive year that I have seen her and several other female French lifters topless in the warm up room, which always reminds me that there are many redeeming aspects of French culture that I need to better appreciate. Pam Zangl made her international debut by going 2/3 and winning the bronze in the 165's. Pam is the wife of Greg Zangl and a licensed massage therapist and was very helpful in working on many of our lifters during the competition. No article on the Masters Bench Press team would be complete without mentioning Pam and Greg's son, Ford who once again proved to be our lucky mascot for the third year in a row. Pam's performance is even more impressive when you realize that she was not only able to perform exceptionally under the pressure of international competition but also under the watchful eye of her son who maintained a steady chorus of, "go Mommy go Mommy go Mommy" during each of her attempts. The toughest class of the women's master 1 was the 181's. With Hanna Takacova of the Czech Republic moved up from the 165's, there were 4 women in this class who came into this contest with nomination best benches of over 250lbs. Fortunately, we had Andrea Sortwell, who is the current world record holder and one of the toughest competitors in our sport, lifting on the platform for the US. In powerlifting, if you are the stronger lifter, you want to just stay ahead of your opponents and make your attempts in order to put pressure on them. Andrea did this masterfully and she made a very solid opener and a slightly sluggish, although perfect second attempt of 253lbs. At this point, her opposition realized that making an attempt for gold would run the risk of loosing out on a medal altogether if done unsuccessfully. As a result, the gold was conceded to Andrea with the real battle being for silver. This allowed Andrea the opportunity to make a world record attempt on her third which she grinded up before stalling out a few inches before lockout. Finishing off the women's lifting for the US and winning the silver was Paulette Calhoun of Killeen, Texas who missed here opener due to not keeping the bar motionless on her chest and used the added stability of another 5.5lbs of the bar to make an easy second with 226lbs. Overall, the women's master 1's earned 50 team points for a very solid team silver behind Germany with 62 points. The men's competition got started off with the master 3's. Hurley Meeks, who had hip replacement surgery last summer, which resulted in a sub par performance at bench nationals last August, was back on track with some very impressive training numbers coming into this competition. Unfortunately, disaster struck for Hurley when he suffered a severe shoulder injury during his last training day before the competition. Hurley came to Nymburk hoping that his shoulder might heal enough to let him lift in the 165's. However, it was not responding like he had hope and he was forced to withdraw from competition. Still determined to help the team, he proved to be invaluable by helping out in the warm up room, especially during the very hectic first day where nearly 20 of our 35 lifters lifted. The lifting got off to a rough start with Ivan Zwick and Dr. Stewart Wiegand failing to make any attempts in the 148's and 181's respectively. Ivan has all the strength in the world to win this competition but just needs to improve his concentration and a few of the non-strength related aspects of powerflting when he is on the platform. Once he puts all the pieces together, he will truly be awesome to see perform. Dr. Wiegand just had a bad day. Although his warm ups appeared to be strong, he just seemed a little flat with his attempts. After the contest he seemed very determined to come back and make up for this performance next year and I have no doubt that he will. The 181's provided quite a bit of drama in this class as 2 of the most popular lifters in this competition, Scotsman, William "Wild Willy" Mcfayden and Finn, Olavi Kallio, showed what the meaning of international competition was. Olavi made 2 very solid attempts, which put the pressure on Mcfayden when he missed on his opener with 352lbs and then going against conventional wisdom, moved up to 363 on his second and failed to lock it out as well. When things were looking their bleakest, the 69 year old Scotsman stormed the platform for his third attempt, let out a battle cry that would have brought a tear to the eye of William Wallace and locked out a very powerful third attempt for 3 white lights and the gold medal. McFayden has a personal best of 385 and is looking to become the first 70 years old under 200lbs to bench 400 in IPF competition next year. Things got back on track in the 198 class with Bill Phillips, the stone mason from New Jersey, crushing his competition in winning the gold and best lifter award for this class with a 402lbs second attempt in what he considered an off performance for himself. Bill came to the competition with his son and business partner Steve who was also very helpful in the warm-up room throughout the week. Jim Bourisaw, a finalist on the Live with Regis and Kelly show's sexiest Husband contest, continued the momentum that Bill Phillips started and won the gold in the 220's, which has eluded him the previous 2 years. Jim was greatly aided by the coaching of Kevin Farley in calling for 402 on his third attempt, which locked up first place for him over France's Marc Lebolay, the pre-meet favorite who struggled greatly in this contest. The 275's had two very promising US lifters win the silver and bronze with 2/3 performances. Murray Marsh took second, with his daughter and son-in-law driving in from Germany to cheer him on and Ralph Sofferdine took third even though he is a relative new comer to our sport. Both of these gentlemen live in Michigan, and often compete against each other, which should make them both improve quite dramatically in the near future. Finishing up the lifting for us in the master's 3's was big John Blackmon, who appeared a little overwhelmed by his first IPF competition on his first 2 unsuccessful attempts. But, after a lot of encouragement from his team and a little ear rubbing from the coaching staff, he made a very powerful third attempt for the gold medal with plenty of room to spare. John's clutch performance gave us a very valuable 12 points which moved us up from third place to first in the team standings. Coming into the second day of competition everything seemed to be going extremely well. The first day, which was far and away the busiest of the week, saw the team come together and work out all the logistics of successfully running a team through IPF competition. Confidence was extremely high as we were all expecting the US juggernaut to steamroll the rest of the competition on the way to 2 more team gold medals. But, as is often the case in international competition, things can very quickly change quite drastically. Jay Haines started things off with a very impressive 3/3 performance for the bronze medal in the 165's. Jim Klostergaard maintained that perfect streak that Jay set by also going 3/3 for the gold medal, his third consecutive at the master's bench press world championships. However, Jim's performance was below what he was expecting due to not being able to stabilize his bodyweight before the competition. Fortunately, Rainer Thomas of Germany was not able to make any of his attempts, which allowed Jim to stay very conservative with his calls and easily win the gold. Events took a turn for the worse in the 220 class as Steve Caldwell really struggled and could not make his opener of 385. Steve had lost almost 7 pounds of bodyweight from when he left Tennessee until he weighed in to lift, which greatly hampered his performance. In the 242's, defending champion Greg Chrun appeared physically ready to get us back on the winning track. Greg was greatly concerned coming into this meet because he had trouble finding the correct bench shirt to wear. After trying on a few different ones in the warm up room, he went out for his opener with a borrowed shirt from another lifter. This uncertainty seemed to have affected his concentration on the platform as he didn't pause his opener and failed to keep the bar motionless on his second attempt. After another shirt change on his third, the bar was loaded for a gold medal attempt with 495lbs. Although he locked it out with authority, he received 2 red lights. One for no pause from the head judge and one for uneven extension from the side judge. The coaching staff immediately protested this decision to the jury and the jury quickly agreed that the bar was clearly paused. After initially appearing to overturn the decision and award Greg the lift, the jury decided to award Greg a 4th attempt instead. Unfortunately, with only 3 minutes rest between his attempts and a lot of energy expended on changing shirts, Greg was out of gas and could not lockout. Although a valid argument can be made that Greg should have been awarded the lift on his third attempt, which would have given him the gold, it is a very rare thing for the IPF to award 4th attempts to anyone. At this point, our team started to seem a little shaken by these events and our momentum from the previous day was lost. Our next lifter was Pat Dennis in the 275's. It is rare enough when someone who has been competing for a little over a year is able to make a world team and compete in the IPF. It is more rare still when they go on to win the gold medal. But, it is almost unheard of that they do so by opening with up with the world record. Pat Dennis did all of these things, as well as discuss the finer points of Irish/Scotish politics with Wild Willy Mcfayden in the bar afterwards. However, Pats results were also a real nail bitter as he had his first 2 attempts turned down due to infractions. He came out for his third more focused and made 528 with plenty of room to spare. He decided to attempt 551 even though he was beginning to cramp up. During his unsuccessful 4th attempt at the world record, he ended up hurting his shoulder, which resulted in quite a bit of pain and discomfort for him during the next day. Fortunately, one of the Finns was able to work on his shoulder the next day and alleviate most of the discomfort that he was having and he appeared to be doing much better at the end of the competition. The super's saw Fred Dini moving up a weight class to win the bronze with a nice 2/3 performance however, Gip Duggan of Colorado ended the day with some drama by not showing up at the warm up room until there were about 10 lifters left before his flight was to start. After passing on his opener, he came out ready to lift on his second attempt. Gip has quite a pre-lift ritual where he wants his coach to slap him on each cheek and then give him a whiff of ammonia before he goes out to the platform. At this point, I was feeling a little tense when I reared back and let him have it so hard that I thought his teeth were going to end up on Heiner's lap, who was sitting a few feet back at the scorer's table. Apparently, this worked for Gip because he made a very strong second attempt to get in the meet and earn the team some very valuable points. For his third, he made a big jump for the bronze but just missed locking it out. With 2 costly bomb outs, we had to settle for third place, beating out France only by the fact that we had more silver medals, only 5 points out of first. After this day, I was reminded of Grant's quote after the Union Army's disastrous first day at the battle of Shiloh during the Civil War when Sherman asked him, "We've had the Devil's own day, haven't we?" to which Grant replied, "Yes, lick'em tomorrow". And lick'em tomorrow and the next day we would. The events of the second day of the competition really seemed to focus us much better for the remainder to the meet. With some of our Masters 1 mainstays missing from this contest, like Larry Miller and Gene Bell, we knew that we had little margin for error if we were going to win the team gold. Master Bench Press team veteran John Corsello began the lifting for us in this class with a very impressive 3/3 performance in the 132's, which earned him the gold medal over his rival Henry Hellmich of Germany. The 181's saw Greg Zangl win the gold in what was the toughest class of the entire competition. There were 6 lifters in this class that were capable of winning the gold. Strategy, the ability to make attempts under pressure and a little luck are what determines who wins and who loses in these situations. All of these fell into place perfectly in this class for Greg. After winning the gold 2 years ago, Greg had to settle for 4th place last year and he seemed very determined to make up for that poor performance this year. In the warm up room, John Corsello and I were scouting the competition and we observed that last year's winner, Frank Heinrich of Germany, bronze medallist, Paul Smith of the Netherlands, and newcomer, Jan Gracyk of Poland, all appeared to be struggling. But, current world record holder Didier Compain of France looked very strong as did Christ Petrishor of Austria. Gracyk could not make any attempts and was out of the competition while, Heinrich and Paul both appeared to really struggle with their openers and did not appear to be in gold medal form this year. Compain, however, looked very strong and made an easy 440 opener to Greg's equally strong 428. Although Petrischor also looked strong on his opener, it was Compain who really concerned us and it appeared as though Greg would need a little luck to defeat the Frenchman this year even though Greg's second attempt with 446 was also very strong and good for 3 whites. Fortunately, luck was on Greg side when in what can only be called a lapse of concentration, Compain did not pause his second attempt with 451 and got it turned down with 3 reds. Suddenly, Greg, who was the lightest lifter of the class, controlled his own destiny and put the pressure on his competitors to decide whether it was worth taking a chance at the gold medal and risk not winning anything should the attempt not be successful or go more conservative and settle for the silver. With Petrischor, Heinrich and Smith all lighter and all attempting 440 or more on their last attempts, Compain decided that the risk of attempting 455, which was only 2.2lbs shy of the world record, was not worth the risk and settled for the more sure silver once Greg made 451 on his third for the gold. Greg decided to make an attempt on the world record with a 4th attempt and he made a nice effort at it but with only 3 minutes of rest, he just didn't have enough to finish the lift. Former open world bench press champion, Ralph Young entered the 220's as the heavy favorite and locked up the gold on his opener with 529, which allowed him the opportunity for make 2 attempts at Poland's, Jerzy Fermanek's of 539lbs world record. After a quick shirt change, Ralph had difficulty bringing the bar down with 540 and had the lift turned down due to the bar not being motionless. A third attempt with 551 was also turned down for the same reason. With the power in which he made both of those attempts, it is obvious to me that Ralph will own that record in the near future. The 242's saw Richard Ludlum of California lifting in his first IPF competition. However, he could not get any of his lifts passed, which is unfortunate because he had the strength to medal in this contest. Also lifting in the 242's was USAPL favorite, Julian Massey of Great Britain who made a very easy personal best with 402. Julian was a blast to hang out with during the week and provided the US team with our unofficial motto for this competition courtesy of the Finns. The 275's saw one of the best US masters bench pressers of all time in Brad Klinger competing against one of the most genetically gifted and determined newcomers in the US, Kevin Hutchinson. Both of these gentlemen are every bit as classy as they are strong. Brad put together a 2/3 performance for the gold medal with a good second attempt of 567 even though he did not feel at his best on this day. Kevin was able to keep his pre-meet nerves in check long enough to win the silver with 528. Hutchinson has one of the thickest upper bodies I have ever seen. Now that he is a veteran of IPF competition, his potential seems almost limitless. When Brad and Kevin weren't lifting or trying to fatten each other up to move the other into the SHW's, they were busy helping out in the warm up room. Francisco Jiminez of Spain looked like he had enough strength to medal. If it were not for the fact that he didn't wait for the start command, pause the bar, keep his feet flat and keep his glutes on the bench he would have had a pretty good performance. Also lifting in the 275's was Finland's Arto Hannolin who had a rough 1/3 performance on the platform and an even rougher one after banquet courtesy of some Metaxa cognac. SHW's Dan Gudreau and Bruce Edwards ensured a strong finish for the US at this competition. Bruce had a very strong 3/3 day, which earned him 4th place. Dan won the gold by breaking his own world record on his second attempt with 572, which was also the biggest bench of the meet. He switched shirts on his third to attempt to add 5.5lbs to his record but, it proved to not be a wise move since he was not able to bring the bar to within 4 inches of his chest. As the bar was hovering above him, I was screaming at the spotter to take it and actually began to run to the platform to help re-rack the bar. Before I could do so, Dan brought the bar down to his abs and while standing about 5 feet from him, I called a press command. He remarkably got the bar about half way up before it stalled. Overall, the master 1 team cruised into first place with 5 gold medals and 1 silver, which put us 16 points ahead of second place Germany. On top of that, the top 3 best lifters were all Americans with Brad Klinger, Ralph Young and Dan Gudreau taking top honors. The early end of the competition on Sunday allowed people the opportunity to go into Prague for a few hours. Kevin Farley, Ralph Young, Richard Ludlum and myself did a Vin Diesel, "Triple X" tour of the city and saw some very impressive sites in the city center. After a lengthy discussion on the merits of a free market economy with a Prague taxicab company, we arrived back in Nymburk for the banquet. The competition ended with a very nice banquet where much fellowship and camaraderie was shared among all the lifters. Although there was no Karaoke like last years banquet, the addition of cigars and free Czech beer more than made up for it. Finally, I want to close by thanking our major sponsors, Inzer Advance Designs and Titan Support Systems for their support in providing us the best equipment available for this competition. Our success was directly related to their generous sponsorship. This is the third year in a row that Inzer has been our sponsor and Titan also very graciously offered us to sponsor us this year immediately after the approval of their equipment for IPF competition. I would just like to state that too often the equipment issue is brought up as a divisive issue in our sport, which I think is very unfortunate. Powerlifting's only consistent sponsors over the years have been equipment companies like Inzer and Titan. More importantly, lifters were free to choose which equipment they wanted to wear in this competition without incident and I feel confident that this will continue to be the case in future contests. Till next year in Slovakia, stay strong and God Bless!

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