A/WPC World Cup 2025, Cairo, Egypt

The A/WPC World Cup in Egypt this year was in Cairo in no lesser place than Giza, in sight of the Great Pyramids!

An intrepid team journeyed to Cairo to compete against and with over 600 lifters through a 6 day stretch. The competition was held at the Steigenberger Hotel and Conference Centre right at the foot of the pyramids. A 5-star hotel and one of the most elegant venues I have seen in my 30+ years competing. Now, we work in Cairo and spend a lot of time in the Middle East, and thus I am used to the bustle, noise and constant stream of people in the place that is home to one of the most visited attractions in the world. However, getting used to this takes time. For our lifters, not being used it, if must have been a shock, particularly in a warm up room, where no one thinks twice about standing 6” away from you as you squat.

International competing isn’t just about navigating your flight and food, it’s about adjusting on the fly to a different culture of life and lifting, being surrounded by different types of people, equipment, ways of doing things, coping with unfamiliar surroundings and sometimes a different way of running a competition. Egyptian lifters are used to lifting days that frequently stretch over 12 hours, competing with very ropey equipment (the monolifts and comp kit don’t get used apart from the World Cup) and there and there is very little that can phase them. As someone said to me, the real stars of the whole thing are the Egyptian lifters themselves. This is true, but the British team who represented GB and were the reason we won the 2nd place of the overall country placings deserves a big praise indeed.

All of them excelled themselves and coped with the 3 million people in the warm up room, people sitting in the monolift having a chat while you’re about to take your next warm up, someone rolling their wraps on the bench after squats finished an hour ago and so on. There were no meltdowns (apart from me but that was an organisational thing), no dramas and lots of British ‘stay calm and take it steady’. The Egyptian people are warm, kind and funny and WANT to help …… but they also like to talk and want to take photographs ……. just as your about to lift. Lovely, but a bit inconvenient. However, this didn’t even phase our team.

Below is the rundown of our lifters and results:

We had Diane Romano-Woodward who became Vudvard and forever will be now. She was in the RAW full power division in M6. Unsurprisingly she was unopposed, you don’t tend get a lot of 69 year old women competing overall. She was coming back from injury and had been rehabbing so her numbers were down, but she managed a really good squat, we won’t talk about the bench and then a monster of a roaring deadlift that terrified everyone in the front row. She took a gold with 90/60/120 result and 270kg total.

Ashley Youle was in the evening competition. He was quite comped out having only just done Salisbury in December and now pushing hard at the World Cup. This guy is such a good lifter and properly “all in”. He was competing full power AWPC Classic RAW and weighed in light at 88kg in the 90s, overdoing the cut a bit.

Ash had a cracking day and finished with a 272.5kg squat which certainly could have been a 280, a 120kg bench as he had a major operation on his shoulder which has still left him with some serious issues, and then a 275kg deadlift on his 2nd attempt. There was a terrible ending to his last deadlift which he fought off the floor and was inches away from finishing it when he got a complete spasm and cramp through the midsection and just couldn’t pull through it. It was so bad that when he got off platform and took his singlet down he had protruding large lumps of the spasmed muscle which had to be massage gunned down. 7.5kg total PB as a result, which is absolutely fantastic in these circumstances!

We had young Mr Joseph Gill, the brave lifter that has already travelled to international competition with us including the US for AWPC Worlds in Baton Rouge, USA, as well as Limerick, Ireland.

Joseph competes in the Teenage 2 90kg full power RAW division, trains at home and is completely self-taught (as we all were before the dawn of the coaches). He has improved incrementally and strategically over his short competing career. He was completely unphased by all the millions of Egyptians in the warm-up area and went on to squat a 182.5kg full RAW  2nd attempt, opened with 145kg on bench but missed his 2nd and 3rd, and then pulled a 500lb/227.5kg deadlift to seal the deal and the gold with a 555kg total.

Joseph went on to compete again on the bench only day in the RAW dvision opening with a careful 142.5kg, then 2nd of 147.5kg. A 3rd of 150kg he just missed, but again took a solid gold medal.

Third day was packed with lifters and very unruly, with equally unruly Mark Johnson and Richard ‘the Badger’ Baker representing team GB.

Mark Johnson is a very seasoned athlete overall having competed at a high level in a myriad of sports over the years. He was recovering from leg/knee/hip “thing” which meant he hadn’t squatted in some time. The quote “it’ll be alright” still haunts me!

Mark, who was in the RAW full power M5 division in the 125kg class opened with a 70kg squat as he didn’t know what would happen. Nothing happened apart from an embarrassingly light squat. He then went 110kg on a 2nd and 142.5kg for a third which was a shock………. well………. to everyone. Bench was a solid 3 lifts of 120, 130 and 135kg and deadlifts zoomed along with 180kg opener, 205kg 2nd and a miss on the 227.5kg on his 3rd. Mark hobbled off with a gold medal as a memento and some European and World records claimed.

Next up was Richard Baker, the man who needs to have that beard waxed off! Richard is a very experienced lifter, trains on his own, self handout on bench, and consistently improves every year. Badger really surpassed himself. Although a seasoned lifter and well-travelled to competitions, competing in Egypt can be a little challenging. Richard, as always, took it in his stride. As I was lifting the next day, I wasn’t around for some of the squat and bench attempts, so I hope he forgave me!

Richard absolutely smoked the 125 full power Classic RAW M4 division with a gold medal, 270kg squat, 180kg (!) bench and 250 deadlift bringing a 700kg total and European and World Records included.

Both Kalle and I were off season. Kalle at the bottom of a build up for the Irish Pro and me post World Championships in Chicago and at the rock bottom getting ready for a competition in the US in August and in the middle of rehab. Even though Kalle is usually on the Finnish Team, this time he was jotted down as Team GB competitor, and the Egyptians listed his hometown as London, much to the hilarity of his friends! He cut down to -125kg class (never thought I’d see the day), but only got his opener of 370kg, which was a disappointment. Both of us do need platform time prior to our “big ones” so this did the job. He was 135kg below his best and this is fine at this stage of a buildup.

As to myself, well, I had the opposite issue. I was desperately trying to keep my weight UP to make the shirt activate. I ended up weighing in at 87kg in the Open and M4 90kg bench only unlimited division. Finished with 250kg pressed on the 2nd attempt and decided to abort my 3rd at 265kg straight after handout, as it felt disastrously out of line. Great fun and, all things considered, a better outing than could have been.

Now we move to the last day. Two lifters I know quite well and one I haven’t really got the chance to talk to until now. The last day was deadlift only.

Jason Reilly came to Egypt as his first international and former ice hockey star had a baptism of fire. in the Masters 3 82.5kg RAW AWPC Deadlift only class, competing against another M3 for the gold. He took the win, opening 135kg and going 155kg, narrowly missing his 3rd. It was a delight to have him in the team, I must say this man understands about being a team player and we were lucky and blessed to have him there.

Stuart Morris was a true hero. He lifted twice as they wouldn’t carry over the Masters deadlift to the open. First, he lifted in the Masters 110kg M1 Deadlift RAW with 3 others in his class and WON the class with 230, 240 and then 252.5kg stuffing the Egyptian and Iraq team. Then he had to lift again in the Open.

Stuart realised early on he was going head to head with an Egyptian lifter and we had play tactics, all resting on Stuart getting his third at whopping 272.5kg which he didn’t think he had in him and the Egyptian missing his 275kg. We had changed his 3rd attempt hoping the Egyptian wouldn’t notice and leave it lower, but at the last second, he did and changed his to 275kg and got it. Stuart absolutely surpassed himself and just got pipped for a gold in the open class and came away with a hard fought silver. What a fight!

Last but absolutely not least is Ali Hasanzade. He has been away with us at World Championships before and is probably one of the most collected and rational comp day lifters I have seen. He was entered in the 90kg open deadlift only RAW class and this was a real sod of a class with Ahmed Said in it – a friend of mine and also one of history’s best deadlifters with a best comp pull of 362.5kg in the 82.5s. This class was tough. Ali had 7 in his class and just squeezed in to 5th place. A great effort especially as this was a little bit of a jolly!

But, it doesn’t end there.

MY longtime friend Mohammed Said came and said “Does Ali want to liftin the single ply open 90kg class?” The class was stacked, and very close, and Mo thought Ali would be in the mix for a medal. Ali was added and had to lift gain against single ply lifters – so, second time lifting AND against equipped lifters. No disadvantage there!  The class ended up with 6 lifters in it, all close to each other. You could touch the excitement – thanks very much, Mo! This turned out to be a battle to the bitter end with a head to head for silver and coming down to whether the Egyptian could pull his last deadlift. Kalle stepped in being the numbers and dirty tricks man with the strategy for the 3rd attempts changes but everything rested on the Egyptian pulling his 280kg deadlift which he did. Ali, having lifted already pulled an outstanding 272.5kg, PB, and 17.5kg more than earlier that day, was one of our heroes with a hard fought bronze. From missing 270 in the morning comp to liftin 272.5 3 hours later is nothing short of amazing.

GB won the 2nd place overall in the country standings and thank you to our team of intrepid lifters who represented their country. With all the team members still at the venue, we celebrated the trophy at 11PM when the awards of a 200-deadlifter day were finally finished!

I hope this will inspire more lifters to take part in the future, and next time we hope to take a massive team to the land of the Pharaohs!

See you there next year!