POWERLIFTERS SHOW PROWESS
THE Irish Powerlifting Federation’s March Open 2018 was in Sligo for the first time ever on Saturday.
The event was hosted by Sligo’s own Storm Body Fitness and took place in the Southern Hotel.
The March Open proved a huge success with more than 70 competitors taking part – representing many Gyms and powerlifting facilities from all corners of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
There were competitors from Sligo, Ballina, Cork, Limerick, Dublin and Belfast in all the different weight categories.
Keith Richardson of Storm Body Fitness brought this event to Connacht and Sligo for the first time and it certainly didn’t disappoint.
He commended all of those who took part and said events like these are a brilliant way to promote the sport among men and women.
Under the instruction of head coach Keith, Storm Bodyfitness had a team of 8 lifters participating in the event.
To top off the success of the competition, the Storm team brought home 3 first place medals on the day.
Keith himself took a respectable fourth place position in the very competitive Men’s Open 105kg category and first in the Men’s Masters Category.
Keith said it was brilliant to see the competition in Sligo for the first time and commended everyone who took part.
He said: “Spectators were treated to a full day event which saw some amazing numbers racked up by the participating competitors and one national record broken.
“The atmosphere was electric. Powerlifting has become increasingly popular with both men and especially ladies of all ages in recent years and the event was a great opportunity for some of the Sligo’s girls to show their true potential.
“It was fantastic to see confident strong women of all ages lifting alongside the men,” Keith added.
It is Keith’s hope that this event may inspire as many potential Connacht competitors in the future as possible.
The Storm Bodyfitness training studio promotes all kinds of health and fitness related classes which includes Powerlifting for beginners both male and female and runs specialised classes for clients who are interested in powerlifting.
This was a massive opportunity for people interested in powerlifting and for powerlifters and existing competitors from Connacht to shine and possibly taking the first steps in creating a Connacht Open to coincide with the existing Leinster, Munster and Ulster Opens.
This event was a qualifying event for the 2018 All Ireland, the Junior and Masters Nationals 2018 and Open Nationals 2019 from which the Irish team is selected to represent their country on the European and World stage.
The Irish Powerlifting Federation was formed in 2015 and is affiliated to the European Powerlifting Federation and International Powerlifting Federation after more than a decade of no Irish affiliation being in place.
Since then the IPF has grown to almost 1,400 competitive members and they have competed at both European and World Powerlifting Championships every year since 2016.
This was such a great opportunity to have Connacht represented in the Irish Powerlifting Federation but it couldn’t have happened without the support of so many local people, not to mention the Storm Bodyfitness members who worked alongside Keith all weekend late into the night to ensure the success of this event and of course the event Crew of IPF.