Irving & Blake medal at the Silver Bar

Four members of the WCL squad travelled out to Wroclaw, Poland for a training camp which ended in them competing in the prestigious Silver Bar event.

The competition was organised by the “START” club in Wroclaw, and had teams from Russia, France, Maldovia, Germany, Slovakia and Poland.  The event was run using the AH formula which allows athletes to compete across weight categories.  There were three events, women’s open, men’s 67.5kg and less, men’s 75kg and above.

Natalie Blake opened with a very confident 95kg, then went to 100kg which she just missed, she then got the 100kg with a really clean 3rd lift.  This was good enough to put her in 2nd place to Justyna Kozdryk (POL) who lifted 95kg which gave her 105.36 points beating Blake by 0.31 points.

Anthony Peddle lifting in one of the early men’s groups lifted 140kg, narrowly missing his 3rd lift of 147.5kg giving 165.03 points which was enough to give him 5th overall.   Jason Irving, then went into the overall lead with a lift of 170kg, going for 175kg on his 3rd lift he lost it on a 2-1 against referee decision.  The last lifter in the <67.6kg event,  Mariusz Tomczyk, failed his 2nd lift of 170kg which would have given him the overall lead, with the home crowd cheering him on he was confident in his 3rd lift, easily getting the lift.  So it was Poland first and Great Britain in second  in both the women’s open and men’s 67.6kg and less categories.  Adam Alderman lifted well to complete the WCL squads  results with a lift of 127.5kg to finish 10th overall.

Overall the team lifted well in their first international event since Beijing, and with a completely new coaching and support staff, the training camp was an overall success. The reason for this was down to the hospitality and support  the team received from  Mariusz Oliwa, one of the Polish Coaches and competition organiser who gave the team access to training facilities.

Full results to follow