Reactive Training Systems

World Games 2009, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

Squat
859
887
903

Bench
600
628 missed twice

Deadlift
788
815
826

2330 total

This contest - the whole experience - from start to finish was incredible. I have never seen a better run contest or a bigger production for powerlifting. From what I've seen, there couldn't possibly be one.
I arrived on Thursday night where I was met at the airport by several World Games volunteers. They proved to be absolutely indespensible the whole trip. They took me and the other new arrivals to the accreditation center where we got our athlete badges and a whole stack of gifts from polo shirts to prepaid cell phone cards. This VIP treatment lasted the whole duration of this event and truly makes it one of a kind.
I went to the hotel and checked in. Eric Nickson was my roommate. Friday was a day that many of us went exploring around the city for a bit. Kaohsiung is a city that has very low crime and I can honestly say the whole time I was there I did not meet one person who was rude or mean. Seriously - not one. Friday afternoon I went down to see the venue for a training session. The *warm up room* had 4 brand new Eleiko platform / rack combos with brand new bars and plates. And by brand new I mean fresh out of the box, never been used. And while I went through my training session, I had volunteers who insisted on loading all my weights for me. They were fantastic! I've never seen a warmup facility of that caliber. It would have made a great training center.
After my session I got to sit down and talk training with Dietmar Wolf, coach of the Norwegian powerlifting team. This was very valuable discussion for me.
Walking around, I saw that the main stage looks just like an Olympic stage. As it should, seeing how this was an olympic event. The point being i have never seen anything like it in powerlifting. The rest of the venue was a large, dual level auditorium with 3000 seats. I found out later that it had been sold out for 2 weeks before the event. For the majority of the meet, the place was full. Even when it wasn't full, there were always a large number of spectators there (who obviously weren't just friends and family). Throughout the contest the media was present as well and significant portions of the meet were shown on Taiwanese TV.
Without giving a play by play of all of the US team members, we had Sioux-z, Nickson, Hooper, Hartman, Tyluki (sp?), and Ricks compete on Saturday. Priscilla, Disa Hatfield, me, Brad Gillingham, and Jessica O'Donnel competed on Sunday. I watched some of the Saturday contest, but spent much of the day relaxing in the air conditioning. I had a little trouble sleeping Saturday night, but it wasn't too bad.
Sunday morning I got up and went to the venue ready to go. I went to equipment check and weighed in. Things felt really good as I went through squat warmups. I nailed my opener and we played a bit more conservative on my second with 887. I nailed that one too, so we went to 903 on the third. I think that was probably the best one because I was aggressive in the hole and I led with my chest on the way up. I went to warm up my bench and again everything was clicking. I should note that the pace of this meet was intense. We had 20 minutes from the time one event ended to the start of the next one. That left very little time for less important tasks such as catching your breath.
I hit my opening bench with very little arch and it felt easy. I wanted to stick to the plan and go to 628, which we did. We pulled down the shirt a little more and I wasn't as aggressive at the start as I should have been. This caused me to misgroove it, so that was a miss. We tweaked everything just right on the third bench but I just didn't have the gas for it. Ah well, off to deadlift.
I suppose it may not be obvious to some, at this point we were only concerned about going for the win - nothing more, nothing less.
At this point I had been sweating profusely for several hours and I started to worry about cramping up. So being the genius that I can be, I guzzled a 20oz bottle of water. This was a mistake because drinking too much before DL makes me want to puke when I'm setting up. So warmups were a bit shaky, but the strength was good. At this point I put control of my attempts in the hands of my handlers, who were going to load just what it would take for me to win.
I was solid on the opener, but I had a small bit of trouble locking my back in with the suit. We made a consevative play to 815. The contest was very close with Shepil building his total right behind me. I hit my 815 and again had issue getting locked in. Because of that, after I got the lift I told them I felt Ike I had about 5 more kilos in me. They put on a big attempt to see what the numbers game would be (ya know, deadlift strategy play), but we had pretty much settled on 826. This was actually the best of my pulls because I got my back marginally locked in. That meant Shepil had to make his third if he wanted to win. And he almost did. He had it just about locked out and he dropped it. I was so excited! We were jumping around and acting nuts!
We then went pretty much straight in to the medal cerimony. The medals they gave are really top quality and very nice. Afterwards, I signed probably over 50 autographs and took literally hundereds of pictures. It was a truly awesome experience. The Taiwanese people (and seemingly the rest of the world) look at this as an Olympic-caliber event and it was great to be a part of it. Honestly I struggle to describe to you just how amazing the experience was.
The last thing we did before leaving was attend the closing cerimony. I don't know how to discribe this event to you. All the athletes were on the field of this massive stadium that the city of Kaohsiung built just for this event. In the stands had to be over one hundred thousand cheering Taiwanese people. They had an entire cerimony with music, laser lights, fireworks, pyrotechnics, and so on. I have never been a part anything like it and it was just one more thing to convince me that this is truly the highest stage a powerlifter can hope to be on. Truly an incredible moment that I won't forget.
I have nothing but positive things to say about this trip. We had a great time and I had a very good meet with a fantastic result. We were treated like VIPs everywhere we went. Just a very great experience from beginning to end!