Competed in the first-ever Olympic-style weightlifting meet held in tandem with an APA powerlifting meet at Elite Performance Center in Portland. The great news is, I hit a longtime goal of a competition snatch of 45KG. I've hit it in training from time to time, and not anytime recently, so to get it at the meet was great. Our meet was unsanctioned, but there were witnesses! :-)
The meet was crazy, and just because of that, it's one of my favorite meets I'd done. We were the cool sideshow to the largest powerlifting meet in the NW. It was fantastic exposure for WL. Most people there had never seen Oly WL before, and they found it fascinating. We had people asking us questions. By the end, we had more people watching our little hemmed-in platform – with no sound, no warm-up space, no timer or timekeeping – than the bench up on the main stage. It was a great experience for all of us. We had a great supportive and cooperative vibe going on - We had to. We did warm-up lifts in between attempts, on the single 6 x 6' platform. We had just one Oly bar, and one powerlifting squat bar, which is what I got stuck on. The small bag of chalk ran out with my clean and jerks. Also keep in mind how different the environment is between powerlifting and Oly WL - powerlifting likes the audio stimulation at high volume; generally you can hear a pin drop in WL meets. So to thrive under those conditions, we all did very well indeed.
It was judged on Sinclair with an age coefficient; I took second for women, but there were only three of us :-) Got a Starbucks card.
Thanks, Nick Horton of PDX Weightlifting and EPC for making this meet a reality. ... And I got to see the legendary Chris Duffin squat!
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