This is the place to discuss the Push-Pull meet on 23-25 January 2009.

Sign up for the meet here.

Eleven lifters and two judges have signed up so far, six days left to sign-up (until January 12th at 10pm GMT). Great to see more first-timers; remember, if you have any questions fire away. More meet info will go out by e-mail next week.

A belated Happy New Year everyone!

All lifters lifting in this meet should now have received further instructions via e-mail. If you haven't, please contact me via PM or e-mail kris@virtualmeet.net. All questions warmly welcome as usual.

Have a great one everyone!

Hi Kris
Sorry, I've got to pull out.  I"ve come down with something, plus we'll have a dozen lifters here (about 7 of them got registered in time, and the rest will just be judged in-house.)
Hence, I'm available to judge if you like.
Chris

Sorry, I've got to pull out.  I"ve come down with something, plus we'll have a dozen lifters here (about 7 of them got registered in time, and the rest will just be judged in-house.) Hence, I'm available to judge if you like.

Chris, sorry to hear that. Hope it's not something too nasty. I appreciate the judging offer and will keep you in the backup slot if any of the current judges pull out. Under normal circumstances, I would be more than happy to turn my duties over to you as one of my long-term goals is to concentrate on running/coding the site and leaving the judging in more capable hands. But since this meet will involve some revamping of the judging interface and serious rule tightening in regards to the uploaded video footage, I think that it is actually a good thing for me to stay at the wheel for this one. But there's plenty of upcoming meets, I'd be thrilled to have you as a judge anytime.

Thomas Bonnette will kick off the meet tomorrow.

As one final reminder to everyone: remember the newspaper (must be in the same clip as one of your lifts), make sure the whole lifter is visible in the clip and, above all, use the meet checklist/read the rules.

Good luck everyone, another exciting weekend ahead!

Update: four lifters have now uploaded.

Unfortunately, Thomas Bonnette and Chris Cooper had to pull out due to accident/illness. The Catalyst Fitness group requested and were granted an extended upload time until Tuesday morning their local time with the option to extend it until Wednesday if needed as they are dealing with quite a few clips.

Update: we are getting there. The Catalyst members seem to be mostly uploaded now save for a few lifter info files. The meet should be with the judges within 24-48 hours.

Also sad to report that Kevin Boone pulled out due to illness. Lot's of things going around this time of year.

The meet consisting of 88 attempts by 15 lifters is now with the judges. As usual, you can follow the judging progress in real time in the box above the forum. The judges have one week from today, i.e. until February 6th, to finish judging.

As discussed earlier, the judging interface now also includes a checkbox for the judges to indicate whether a newspaper is shown in a video clip or not. At the end of the meet it will be verified that each lifter has at least one attempt that has been flagged as containing a proper newspaper by at least two of the three judges. If a newspaper is lacking, the lifter will be disqualified.

Stay tuned...............

The meet has been judged. Let's see what we can do about getting it released tomorrow.

The meet will be released tomorrow Wednesday.

After taking a look at the rulings and the videos, I am happy to report that everyone put in a good effort in ensuring that the videotaping and newspapers were up to standards. And... plenty of great lifting too! Good job everyone!

THE MEET HAS BEEN RELEASED! (and rankings updated, lift trackers generated, stats re-calculated etc. etc.)

First of all I want to thank Ryan and Matt for yet another swift and well done judging job. Without judges no meet, so lifters, please give them a good pat on the back.

Secondly, thanks to all lifters for really taking the tightened videotaping and newspaper policy to heart. Anthony and Yury did give us the scare by saving the newspaper for the deadlifts... but everyone had a newspaper that you took extra care to display. Bonus points go out to the Bulgarian crew in this regard. The clips also showed nothing but whole lifters with a steady hand; that certainly made us judges job a LOT easier. Not a single "no judge" call was passed this meet.

And to top it off... great lifting across the board! Our new Swiss friends Claudia and Ramon made their Virtualmeet debut with a splash both in terms of clean technique and results. The women's deadlifting was particulary impressive: all three of you made the top four on the deadlift ranking. The Catalyst crew really came back with a vengeance and customary high intensity... the same can be said for Anthony and Yury in New York who took no prisoners. Looking at the clips by Tsvetan, Alexander, Petko and Ivan one really wishes one understood a bit of Bulgarian... Last but not least, Sebastien held his ground well as the only teenager in this meet.

I could go on... but look around for yourselves and you'll see plenty more.

In short: thanks!... and welcome back anytime. 

Thanks to you, Kris.  We can appreciate how much work goes into this for so little reward.  Hope it makes you a billionaire someday.