Things are beginning to return to normal at my end after dealing with all the other tasks I put on the backburner to get the meet out.
I know I may be repeating myself, but I want to extend one final big THANK YOU to all lifters. You all took the time to ensure good angles and light conditions (Alberto even challenged the sun successfully); this made it easy for the judges and I was spared the additional work of manually trying to lessen the impact of badly lit video. In fact, the only manual intervention I did was to fix a clip where the camera was suddenly turned from horizontal to vertical. The rest was taken care of by a script which generated all images with the lifter info, compressed the video, computed the results and so on; besides editing the meet video, I did not have to touch your videos at all. This solved the biggest bottle neck to being able to cater for big meets and really underscores the importance of the lifters submitting properly named and well-shot video. If I had to do 105 clips by hand combining lights and writing out lifter info, then generating them and converting to Flash video, you would still be waiting... so THANKS FOR A JOB WELL DONE EVERYONE!
The judges also did an excellent job. There was some minor disagreement between how deep is deep enough on the squat and what constitutes an adequate pause on the bench press, but that's what three judges are for.
Having to bomb out a lifter is never a fun task, but Stinn, Ryan and Tim all kept their line to the end like it should be done. THANKS GUYS!
All lifters also showed a huge deal of sportmanship and integrity. The meet did not go very well for many, but all clips still made it to the server. I'm not sure how far Jamie is from when he exclusively did powerlifting, but I for one was very impressed by his machine-like lifting... very impressive form. Aaron played it very safe and gets the inofficial award for strictest form and most impressive squat depth; doesn't get you any extra points of course, but going deep on the squat is always impressive. Matt, Christine, Mike, Christian, Alberto and Måns all put in a good show; some of you played a risky game, but am impressed by your lifting even though I know many of you did not get what you set out to do for various reasons. That's what the next meet is for.
Last but not least, the Crossfit crew (Emmie, Jen and Jesse) has my fullest respect for being in such good shape (not to mention the positive atmosphere that shines through every clip). As you all know, these people specialize in hardcore overall fitness; I for one wonder how much less I would be squatting were I also biking, doing parkour and so on. Hopefully you three will consider a come-back in a future meet; the strength is definitively there, but got the impression that you may not have studied the rulebook so closely (I especially feel for Jen who did an awesome last pull, fast as lightning, after failing it on the second but then dropped it from straight arms).
Many of us are still inexperienced when it comes to meets, real or virtual, but no better way of becoming a better lifter than to learn from experience. I for one again learned a lesson regarding my low back having to lay off all squatting for three weeks prior to the meet to be able to come in at all. Will make a more gentle approach next time, period. Greed has a tendency to backfire, but try convincing your brain that.
Kris, I didn't know how you would outdo yourself from the last meet but you did. I especially like the inclusion of why it was thought the lift failed if any of the judgements were red-lighted.
Thanks! You will continue to see improvements over the next few meets. As I get things properly scripted the sky is the limit to what we can turn this into. One thing I'm especially missing is the ability to follow the score as the meet progresses like in a real meet.
Are you gonna post this on the Dr. Squat site like the last one?
Already did, just followed up in the
old post. Also submitted it to
Powerlifting Watch. The meet is also popping up on various boards and blogs, I will be posting a few links tomorrow.
I also wanted to send a shout out to the women who competed, and I hope they'll compete next time, too.
Couldn't second that more!
