TEAM SYNERGY UPDATE – NORTH AMERICAN POWERLIFTING CHAMPIONSHIP
On Thursday July 9th, we had two Synergy ladies compete in Moose Jaw at the North American Powerlifting Championship- Gen Grant and Sandra Nase – both of whom won gold in their weight classes.
Sandy has been battling knee issues this past training cycle, but still managed to put together a respectable day. She stumbled a little on her squat opener but came back out to make good attempts on her second and third, finishing with a 102.5kg/226lb squat. She benched 60kg/132lbs and narrowly missed 62.5kg/138lbs on her third attempt. Sandy finished off her day with a 160kg/352lb deadlift. All of her lifts were Master II North American Records.
Gen also lifted in this session and had her best meet to date! She went 3/3 in the squats, getting a PR of 125kg/275lbs. Gen also broke her own National Record in the bench, pressing a 77.5kg/171lb bench PR. The PRs kept rolling into deadlifts with Gen hitting a 165kg/363lb pull on her second attempt. She misgrooved 170kg/374lb deadlift on her third attempt, which would have been a National Record. Nonetheless, Gen’s bench, deadlift and total were Master I North American Records!
On Friday we had our young gun compete – Tanner LePage – who won a silver medal against some stiff competition. After smoking his opener, Tanner achieved a North American Junior squat record of 203kg/447lbs. His record would have stayed had his competitor not secured a total; however, Tanner’s competitor out squat him on the third attempt. Moving into bench, Tanner had an easy opener and jumped to 142kg/313lbs. He misgrooved it slightly on his second attempt but came back to grind it out for his third! Tanner hit a PR of 222.5kg/490lbs on his second deadlift and went for 230kg/507lbs but just couldn’t lock it out fully. Next time!! Tanner is proving to be a great competitor and has a bright lifting career ahead of him!
On the last day of the competition, we had Russell Agnew compete in the Junior 105kg class. This is Russell’s last year as a Junior and he really wanted to go out with a bang. He went 3/3 in the squats, finishing with a 10kg PR of 257.5kg/567lbs! He managed to secure a PR bench as well of 152.5kg/336lbs. Moving into deadlifts, Russell had his eyes set on some records. After a successful second attempt at 287.5kg/633lbs, the coaches initially put 290kg/638lbs in as a third attempt to build the total. After some calculations and debating, we changed Russell’s third attempt to 298kg/655lbs to break the National Deadlift and Total Records. He went out there and locked out his third attempt, but was a no lift with 2 reds to 1 white. We challenged the call and the jury ended up overturning it and Russell was credited with the lift and the National Record! Russell’s lift was the ONLY call to be overturned in the whole competition. He won a gold medal in the Junior class and his total would have placed him second in the Open class as well. Very impressive!
Chris Arnold was entered in the competition; however he could not compete due to a knee injury. Despite this, he dedicated his time to coach numerous Canadian Athletes throughout the week. Thank you Chris!!
Overall, Team Synergy represented Canada with pride on the international stage and we couldn’t be more proud!
