All thoughts, comments and questions on the 13-18 September 2011 Weightlifting meet are welcome here!

Sign-up to lift or judge here!

to whom do i send my contact information?

to whom do i send my contact information?

You should just have received an e-mail with further details. Please ask if you have any further questions whatsoever ...and have a great first virtualmeet!

Looks like I'll be judging...

Ok, thanks for confirming that Jeff. I will get in touch tomorrow with the judging details.

Jeff and Warren: you should now have the usual judging access details in your inbox, thanks a lot!

As usual, the judging progress can be followed in real-time via the box above this forum.

Question: anyone interested in the third judging slot?

This is the first meet I did not judge sitting on the toilet.

Another ocean trekking weightlifting meet has made it into harbor after crossing the seven seas. Justin deserves big thanks for his extraordinary patience. Some good lifting there too!

As a side-note: Justin was wearing pre-wrap to allow him to lift after straining his wrist in the warm-up. The intent of the rules is that they are to be uniform between powerlifting and weightlifting, so technically any kind of wrapping is not allowed in either. But the rules are unfortunately a bit vague here in that they talk about "powerlifting equipment":

The only allowed powerlifting equipment during lifts is a belt. Anything else - including knee wraps, supportive suits and briefs, knee warmers, sweat bands, wrist wraps, gloves and tape - are forbidden.

After a lot of head scratching, I decided to give this one to Justin since the rules are not as unambiguous as they should be on this point. No judge flagged him for this either. There is also no mention of this in the meet checklist.

This begs the question: What is the general sentiment out there regarding wrist wraps and taping in weightlifting? Unlike powerlifting where there are many interpretations of RAW, weightlifting has very uniform rules which do include wraps. Warren presented a good argument for allowing the standard gear in January 2011. Based on this discussion we did allow singlets hence taking the first step away from total uniformity between all virtualmeet events.

Also, I am not sure whether we should explicitly forbid toilet-based judging.

A few more thoughts - and why do I always end up on this site with a hangover? Probably because I'm not down the gym like I ought to be.

The more beat up I get, the more in favour I am of wrapping. I've spent the past 3 months lifting with Eleiko cloth wrist wraps, and I wouldn't have been able to rack the bar at all without them (the forearm muscle would seize up at the wrist and cause pain).

The whole point of PL gear is to move more weight. I can't see a weightlifter adding weight with the use of knee warmers/wraps or wrist wraps. It could reduce the risk of injury to the smaller joints though.

I think if the intent of the rules was previously to be uniform between PL and WL, that intent might need to evolve. The two sports are different, and concessions have already been made. There's no such thing as geared weightlifting, because if it made a difference someone would have noticed already, and there'd be a million geared federations jostling for superiority. With bandanas and heavy metal background music in their youtube videos.

Also, I just read in your profile that you've only been O lifting for 4 months - fantastic job Justin.

My opinion on wrapping in weightlifting comps is that it acts as safety gear and in no way aids a lift.  I think it should be allowed...otherwise we won't be able to tape our thumbs either.