And there is was gone….. 2024! BRING ON 2025 as its bigger!

RECAP OF 2024: A year of HUUUGE international teams, a substantial hike in the Qualifying Standards of British Championships, 26 Qualifiers, 2 EXPO meets and 4 national level championships.

Two weeks ago A/BPU ran the last qualifiers of year 2024, and fittingly we saw three qualifiers being ran all across the country, from Devon and Wiltshire to North Wales.

Steve Middleton’s Platform Gym had a Christmas Push-Pull meet, where a refreshing variety of lifters had a fun day of benching and deadlifting. For 13 and 15-year old Teague sisters to Masters 6 competitors, and from lightweights to super heavyweights, everyone shared a platform in true Christmas spirit!

Dayle Longford was in charge for yet another qualifier at his fabulous DL Fitness establishment, with a host of newcomers competing alongside few established veterans, one of our promoters Craig Orange stealing the show with his 350kg squat!

349 Barbell hosted their first ever A/BPU meet as promoters, and, as one would expect for such a seasoned crew, everything went smoothly and ran impeccably. Big shout out for their successful independent competition, one of many to come!

That wraps up a year of action, and of 24/25 season we have only seen the first half.

The most remarkable aspect of the year was the huge teams sent abroad to WPC International meets! 

Europeans in Finland had almost hundred lifters for team UK, WPC Worlds all the way in Chicago managed to gather two dozen hopefuls, and AWPC Worlds saw the biggest British powerlifting team ever sent to an international meet of any federation, 151 (ONE HUNDRED AND FLIPPING FIFTY ONE!) representing UK in the Championships in Limerick!

This platform of international competing in various countries is one of the driving forces of the federation. We will continue to encourage our lifters to travel, as competing in other countries provides an opportunity like no other to develop as a lifter and can include life-changing experiences. Just a reminder, 2025 International meets include destinations such as Egypt for the historic Cairo and its World Cup, Europeans for AWPC and WPC lifters in Poland, a World Cup and A/WPC Worlds in Idaho Falls (this is in Yellowstone National park!) and, the most exotic of all, WPC Worlds in South Africa!

The biggest change for domestic competing in 2024 was the new, significantly higher Qualifying totals for Full Power British. The federation continually growing, Brits were ballooning to be an unmanageable endeavour, and the only option was to increase the QTs. This made the Brits exceedingly hard to qualify for, yet the lifters kept meeting the challenge! Qualified lifters battled it out for seven days, often more than 70 lifters in one day, and many classes being EXTREMELY competitive. This will set the standard going forward, and anyone coming to the Brits, especially in Open aga class, must be ready to fight until the last deadlift!

Our four national meets were Single lift Nationals, which saw 200+ benchers and deadlifters lifting in front of FitXpo crowd, Full Power Brits, the gargantuan week long experience in Manchester’s Pendulum hotel with 400+ full power lifters, three day powerlifting Games in Nottingham, doubled in size since last year when it was introduced, and our brand spanking new Supermasters that was held in FitXpo 2 in NEC and showcased our best Masters age lifters!

Alongside this, 26 qualifiers, most two days, were held across UK. It is easy to say the year was full.

The people that make this wonder happen, year after year, are so numerous it is impossible to list them all. We have had help in so many forms, from admin help to spotting and loading, from refereeing to coffee runs done by random helpful strangers, and from help in hauling the kit to experts of different fields consulting us about logistics, PA or the dreaded tech! It is not the superficial things, important as they are, that give people experiences, and it is not the fancy kit that makes someone feel welcome. It is the staff, the meek and the bold, the loud and the silent ones. It is the banter and small helping words, it is the encouragement and advice, it is the kick up the arse when needed and it is the platform you won’t be judged if you shed a tear or rip out a fart.

To each and every helper, we want to say a huge thank you! To all volunteers, promoters, and lifters, we did it!

And we will do it next year also, only bigger, better, louder, more advanced and hopefully being still referred to as the Wild West!

Fish out, see you on the other side!