IPF University Championships 2018 Results

Click here for full results: IPF University Championships 2018 (14 April)

Someone told me yesterday that this was the first intervarsity event in four years than UCC haven’t won. Admittedly, some of those victories came in wor…different federations before the IPF existed.

So announcing Trinity Barbell, captained by Rachel Knight and coached by Deividas Barisas, as the winning team yesterday was not just a surprise but perhaps also a changing of the guard?

The Trinity team (almost half of which seemed to be concentrated in the -72s to the casual observers) performed admirably and I’m told went 94/99 on their attempts which is no mean feat.

UCC did manage to secure silver and I’m sure Someryina Kenneth Nwaezeigwe, Dan Hurley, the rest of the UCC legends, and their next generation of lifters will be keen to reclaim their crown next year.

(Minor aside: I’ll always be thankful to the UCC powerlifting community. The work that was happening there during the heyday of whatever the IDFPA is now called was a huge stepping stone in Irish powerlifting. Thank you.)

The individual weight class winners were:

47: Kym Murray (NUG) 240.0kg / 331.80 Wilks
52: Máiread Murphy (ITC) 290.0kg / 361.51 Wilks
57: Chere Duffy (UCC) 280.0kg / 327.15 Wilks
63: Aoife O’Sullivan (TCD) 335.0kg / 364.18 Wilks
72: Elaine Kelly (TCD) 240.0kg / 240.67 Wilks
84: Freya Hammer (UCC) 377.5kg / 351.23 Wilks
84+: Tracey Kelly (UCC) 340.0kg / 278.70 Wilks

59: Samuel Smith (UCC) 312.5kg / 276.41 Wilks
66: Harry McGuirk (ITC) 377.5kg / 298.64 Wilks
74: Conor Dev (DIT) 600.0kg / 432.42 Wilks
83: Josua Schilling (UCD) 595.0kg / 399.78 Wilks
93: James Rutledge (QUB) 575.0kg / 361.21 Wilks
105: Adam Abdelmoneim (RCS) 565.0kg / 340.69 Wilks
120: Kieran Walsh (UCC) 545.0kg / 319.37 Wilks

As always, two lifters stood out:

Conor Devilly in the -74s hit an excellent 432.42 Wilks thanks to his 600kg total and Aoife O’Sullivan’s 364.18 Wilks from 335kg in the -63s made them our best lifters. Well done to both of you.

Both are heading to Worlds in Calgary in June and this was Aoife’s third competition in as many months so it was phenomenal to see two of our best juniors still competing at the University Championships despite Worlds on the horizon.

Congratulations to every single lifter who stepped on the platform whether for the first time or fifteenth time. It’s a huge step to go from lifting for Instagram to lifting in front of three experienced referees and a crowd looking on at you – I hope we’ll see each of you on the platform again soon.

The officials and platform team were absolutely outstanding yesterday during a very long day of action which started just before 6AM and concluded shortly after 8PM.

Thank you to our team of officials who were Ally Ni Raghallaigh, Eric Killeen, Amy Nolan, Jack Thornton, Jack Ryan, Rob Parnell, Linh Duy Nguyen, and Laura Cooley. Refereeing that many lifters and flights isn’t easy and I am so grateful for the effort you put in. In the background, Jonny Gardner and James Hanley did sterling work putting the roster together – thanks gents.

The spotters and loaders did an amazing job with Emma Kiely, Big Joe the Mountain Man, Scott Dean, Ben Harrison, Ben Doyle (cunt), Noel Whelan, and Lukasz Kalinski all doing amazing work. Watching Instagram celebrities BenAndNoel working together was truly a joy to behold.

The final deadlift flight of the day also saw a special guest appearance from the Strength Militia team with Lauren Rooney Crowe, Carrie Carmichael, and Brónagh McPeake running the platform.

Thank you to Ozone Energy Drinks for kindly sponsoring our best lifter prizes for this event and thank you to Avonmore Protein Milk for keeping lifters and the platform team well stocked with protein milk for the day.

Finally, thank you to Jay Farrant and the ABS team for all of the work they put into setting the venue up. I think it’s fair to say it’s the best ABS has ever looked and a great sign of what’s to come in this summer’s ABS Pro & SBD Cup 2018 meet.

With the congratulations and thank yous out of the way. A moment of real talk…

We had a couple of major fuck-ups yesterday which saw some flights start later than planned. About forty minutes for C/D and twenty minutes for E/F. Thank you so much for bearing with us during the delays and my apologies that they happened in the first place.

We’re continuing to experiment with competition timings, etc. and we’re keen to find ways to accommodate more lifters within a single day. We want to do this because it means fewer lifters missing out on events they really want to compete at and it also adds hugely to the atmosphere when there’s a bigger crowd.

However, we’re keen to ensure we never compromise the lifter’s experience so we’ll take the lessons from yesterday and ensure that if we do add numbers to a day it doesn’t impact the punctuality that lifters have come to expect from us.

As for the microphone/PA situation during flights C and D… would you believe me if I told you that while shouting into the crowd sans-microphone like a medieval town crier… I had no less than FIVE microphones within arms reach… none of which were working for a multitude of reasons? Because I did.

A thousand thank yous to Shannon Pollock for making the trip to Maplin to secure a working microphone. Another lesson we’ll take away and work to make sure doesn’t happen again.

And… that’s another one done and dusted. Well done again to Rachel, Dav, and the whole Trinity Barbell team. Congratulations to Conor and Aoife on their winning performances.

We’ll see you at the famed Mayo Pen in my beloved CityGym on May 19/20 for our final Open before we focus on All Irelands and Worlds in June.

Beir bua,
Rob