Dr Emma Ylitalo-James, President and Founder
It was an outstanding week at the A/BPU British Full Power Championships 2024. The way the federation is having to evolve changed the dynamics of the British. At first I thought it was for the worst…………… but read on. Last year we had 600 lifters over 8 days and we knew something had to change, it would either have to be a 2 week Brits full power or we had to change the entire structure and ethos of the federation.
The standard has grown so much above European level to a British Championships on a par with Worlds. That is the level of our lifters – so we had to make changes and do the one thing that does not sit well with me and make the British a standalone top tier goal, So the qualifying totals went up, in some classes by almost 20%. We didnt expect 450 of you to get through but you did! I also didnt want to make it some terrible “elite” tier (which I hate – I dont believe anyone is “elite”, you’re just the same as anyone else and as much of a nob) but this clearly didn’t happen.
The first few days all of us on the team thought there was something wrong, the atmosphere was QUIET and not the same buzz of excitement – it seemed like no one was having fun – this is we were wrong, and also right. When stood back and looked at the classes, as we had less lifters qualify and the standard dramatically increase, it meant opening attempts for the classes of 4/5/6 and more were all within around 30kg ish – and through the competition it remained that way with pretty much everyone having to be absolutely on their game to keep their place and get on the podium place.
Most classes had to fight to stay in the top 3 with bodyweight final decisions a daily thing and lifters in 5th and 6th position moving into top 3 when someone missed a lift. So what we saw was focus – and having to COMPETE, This was the toughest and best British yet and we have moved into a new era and so we must progress. We have very big plans for next year and 2026 and a lot of changes. based on what we saw at the British – including a superfinal linked to the British but more to come on that. I am so incredibly proud that what we have created is a federation of incredible lifters who worked their way up and through to the British, that the British is hard to qualify to and truly a championships, that our lifters haven’t turned into entitle idiots because they qualified and team of people I am proud to call a British Team I can take to AWPC and WPC World Championships.
Thank you to all the staff who gave up their time and came and worked their socks off to make this happen. Thank you to the referees who came and concentrated, to the loading crew (some of whom did EVERYTHING and had really long days loading), the long enduring weigh in staff and refs, the table crew to kept everything going and made the competition run, the tech refs to made the platform smooth and on time and had to really know their stuff, and people to came to help build up, tear down and carry and fix. Roll on 2025 and the changes in store – and 2026 when we host the AWPC Worlds which is now FINALLY becoming a real worlds with new countries taking the AWPC license which frankly should have happened years ago instead of it just being Russia, USA and GB. We can now offer our ABPU lifters the beginnings of hard competition internationally, It is all growing and thank you everyone for growing with us.