THE MEET HAS BEEN RELEASED!

As usual, it has the usual ups and downs. Special thanks to Duncan Henry and Juha Koivisto for joining us. Juha made quite the first splash by moving up first on the military bench ranking with some exemplary lifting to boot.

Discussion/questions warmly welcome.

Great lifts you guys!  And many thanks to our judges and to Kris for putting this together.

That pause at the bottom is crazy--I was telling myself all the time to pause, and it felt like I did.  But when I watched the video before submitting I saw that there was no pause.  I'm going to try the "one, two" count next time. 

This was a great experience for me, time to go sign up for the weightlifting competition...

Congrats Juha! You nailed the best military bench ever in Virtual Meet!

Myself I´m a little ashamed coming in second with such lousy lifting. At least I got some white lights this time.

Ahh that pause. Thanks for the strict judging and I will be working on it for the next time. I was more focused on not racking the bar right away after the attempt.

Stong lifting from Juha, Tomas and Duncan.
Extremely strong finish on the third attemt from Juha. Right passed any sticking point.
Tomas, your second attempt was quite close. In my view you only needed a bit more speed to lock it out.
Duncan what happened to your other attempts?

Great lifts you guys!  And many thanks to our judges and to Kris for putting this together.

Thank you for the kind words and for taking part. And good luck in the weightlifting meet!

Myself I´m a little ashamed coming in second with such lousy lifting. At least I got some white lights this time.

Another way of looking at it is that you came in last since the two other gentlemen bombed out. Personally, I think the rankings is the best indicator of how one did in the big scope of things as the actual meet placement is just relative to who happened to take part.

The Virtualmeet format is also interesting from a competition standpoint since you cannot adjust your attempts knowing what you'd need to beat the bench a fellow competitor just nailed. So this kind of underscores competing against what you think is your best form for the day. A great meet for me is to at least nail whatever I saw in my head before the meet, even if that means way less than I may have been able to do when in better shape. But of course, the motivation for taking part in a meet are as varied as are the lifters. For many first timers, it's just about actually pushing yourself over the threshold and to take part. Passing is a bonus. And this is what I love; there's something for everyone here whether you are pushing against the top of the rankings or yourself.

I want to thank the judges for their fast decisions and Kris for the efforts in releasing the results and clips very quickly. Judging a competition is always a difficult job. Especially the time of the marks easily arises some discussion. I have tried to use the method Måns described for sufficient stop i.e. counting 1 and 2 while resting the bar on the chest. Propably the best Military  Virtualmeet Bench Press "marks" I have seen are by Walter Kurda. They make a good example for everyone! Thanks once more to everyone and good training and meets in the future.

Juha, that was some incredible benching!  Congratulations. 

Thank you for congratulations. I am pleased to the result as I had my right shoulder operated summer 2008. Rotary cuff tendons broke totally in warming up of a team repetition competition. Also my bicep tendon was misplaced. With the broken tendons I did 12 rep's with 100kg as did not want betray the team. Summer 2008 I thought that I will never lift again because I could not even lift the bar. This was extremely bad setback to me after 36 years of training. I then made a promise to myself that if I ever can lift again I will train more than ever. 2009 I benched 1.062.000 kg's altogether. Hard training seem to bring good results. I encourage my fellow competitors to make the preparation to competitions with proper stops. You may have to reduce weight in the beginning but after a while you can lift the same weights with stops! 

Juha.

Duncan what happened to your other attempts?

Christian, we ran out of memory on the camera after the first attempt.  I barely made 195, but missed 205.  It's ok, I still didn't have enough pause on the bottom, though I wish I could have submitted video of all the attempts.  Your lifts were solid, I was disappointed you got the red lights.  Next time will be better!

Juha, that's an incredible come-back--an injury like that can really ruin your game.  That must have required strong determination and a lot of perseverance. 

--Duncan