I buried my meet PR by 55lbs too !
With my opener...

You are the Albino from t-nation right ?

Hey Marc, how about your second and third? Did you get them?

Judges willing, yup ! Pretty happy with my third, a real grinder, and a gym PR.

Update: Helgi Briem has stepped in to fill the final judging slot. Looks like the meet results will be out late GMT time today or tomorrow, so still on schedule. Stay tuned.

Sorry, got caught up with a freelance project I'm working hard on finishing so I can get back to working on the Virtualmeet release. The meet is going out late today, as usual I will update here and send out an e-mail when done.

Thanks for your patience, there's definitively some good action worth waiting for in this meet.

Ok, got the final results generated. Still some time before everything else is done too, but getting there.

THE MEET IS OUT!

I apologize for falling a bit behind the planned schedule. Special thanks goes out to Helgi Briem who stepped in on short notice as the third judge and immediately returned his calls. And to Christian Burger for volunteering in the first place.

This meet has, like most meets, it's highs and lows. The lowest of the low was definitively Kevin Kepley pulling a tendon on his second attempt forcing him to head for the hospital instead of taking what would have been a good third attempt. Kevin, my sincerest wishes for getting well soon.

I also feel for Tomas Jacobsson (by the way the first Swede to go beyond plans to actually doing a virtualmeet!) who used boards to raise the bar to regular lifting height. While it makes perfect sense that it should only be fair to lift from the same height as everyone else when using smaller plates, this is unfortunately explicitly forbidden in the rules (see section II Powerlifts, The Deadlift).

The bar shall be laid horizontally in front of the lifter's feet on the floor. A thin rubber mat not exceeding 2 centimeters/0.8 inches in thickness is allowed under the weight plates if needed to protect the floor, but the bar may not be elevated off the floor in any other fashion.

Bombing out otherwise solid lifts due to a minor oversight like this is obviously never fun (definitively on par with the classic bomb out of lifting in socks or going barefeet). So while it did not give Thomas any advantage over those lifting with regular size plates, this rule exists to keep the game straightforward, make judging easier (judging elevation height is very difficult on video) and, frankly, gives us better street credibility.

Speaking of which, David Savoir is a good example of this. He lifts off a serious deficit with very small plates making us wonder how much more he wouldn't be lifting off regular height (David, thought of getting some bigger plates?). Impressive though.

And the highs... plenty of those. A selection in no particular order: Shawn O'Donoghue and Led Zeppelin that transformed a weak second attempt into a killer third, Marc Aube hauling a frantically resisting 215.5kg (475lbs) all the way... and crowning it with an Andy Boltonesque salute, Wade (Tony) Dare hitting the second best deadlift in a virtualmeet in a first shake-up at making first (Ron, any thoughts of adding some more margin...?)... enough said. If you're still reading, you should stop now and click here.

Over to you guys.

Sorry about the buzzkill tendon thing.  Had surgery to reattach the tendon on 2/19.  It will be about 4 months until I'll be lifting anything "heavy"  My first meet will probably be my last.

I would like to thank you for putting this meet on.  It is a fantastic idea!

Congratulations to all of the fine efforts from all of the real lifters out there!

Sorry about the buzzkill tendon thing.  Had surgery to reattach the tendon on 2/19.  It will be about 4 months until I'll be lifting anything "heavy"  My first meet will probably be my last.

Hey, no worries about that. I think I'm not alone in saying that I feel sorry that you got injured. I hope the surgery works out for you. Also, thanks a lot for still uploading your clips despite the meet turning belly up for you. Looked like strong lifts, including your second attempt up until the unfortunate injury.

Speaking of the second attempt, your injury prompted me to think a bit about how to we should handle clips with injuries. I came to the conclusion that I will refrain from publishing any clips where more serious injuries occur (and I will also be adding a clause to the rules saying that uploading clips with serious injuries is not required). Since this is the public internet, it would only be a matter of time before these clips find their way to those powerlifting injury flicks on YouTube etc. I think that with injuries, we want to respect the privacy of not having to have your accident broadcast all over the web. At some stage I think we will also start noting injuries in the final result ("withdraw due to injury") to give some context to why not all clips were uploaded. What do you guys think?

And Kevin: if worse comes to worse and we will never have the honor of meeting you again on the virtual platform, you would always be warmly welcome to judge. If you ever feel like that, just let me know.

Thanks a lot for your kind words and get well!

Congrats Wade! Great meet you did.

Thanks.

I gotta say Marc and Shawn had the most impressive lifts in the meet - it's not easy to come back and so thoroughly dominate a weight that kicked your ass in the previous attempt.  And Marc's lift was a breath-holding event.  I haven't seen a slow grinder like that for a long while.  Good on ya both!

All my PRs look like this, if I can break it off the floor, I'm going to lock it out, but it's going to be a real battle with the weight.

Anyone got tips or insight on their deadlift training ?

Interesting observation: in this meet, only 3 out of 8 lifters wore a belt. Add in the number of lifts over 200kg and this stands out even more in comparison to previous meets where belts have largely been the norm. Steel backs...? A stricter RAW ethic emerging...? Or perhaps more people coming in from other backgrounds than competitive powerlifting (where again, belts are really everywhere)?

Haven't noticed so few were wearing the belt. For my part it was a try. I lifted 465 this summer without a belt so I don't think it makes much a difference in my case.

Well, I partially tore a hamstring in November and started training deadlift in Mid-January, so maybe it helped. Haven't touched legs or lower-back in that time-frame (2 months and a half).

I thought why not use it if I can ? Even if it's just going to give 5-10 pounds, at least I won't worry to much about my back.

For a while I had a thing against belts and so I never bought one.  I wanted to see how far I could go in squat and dead without.  I'm reconsidering that stand and am looking to purchase one once the cash comes free, which, by co-inkydink, just occurred today.