The 76kg class provided one of the most exciting finishes last year when Canada's Jessica Buettner was forced to pull more than any raw woman in the IPF had ever done before to beat Poland's Agata Sitko on bodyweight. With New Zealand's Karlina Tongotea added into the mix, this was a three way dance that promised to be a battle to remember.
Tongotea looked in great shape and led from the very start, piling kilos into her total with a world record squat of 225.5kg for the squat gold. Buettner was right behind though and matched her best squat with 220kg for the silver.
Sitko leapt into prominence on bench, opening fully 30kg heavier that anyone else. Her opening attempt was only 1kg below her own bench world record and moved like an empty bar. She broke 4 records in one with 153kg - three lift bench AND single lift bench records in the junior AND open categories. Phenomenal lifting.
This gave Sitko a tiny lead going into deadlifts but the other two were bigger deadlifters and Tongotea moved more than 10kg ahead with her 235kg opener. Buettner closed the gap to Sitko with a decent 240kg but missed 252.5kg on her second.
Into the final round and Sitko pulled 240kg to extend her own junior deadlift world record and take the lead by 50g of bodyweight. Tongotea dropped her deadlift to take just what she needed to take it back. 245kg went on the bar and the packed crowd went nuts. It was a tough pull but a successful one and surely we had our new 76kg world champion.
One more deadlift though - Buettner has pulled historic numbers before when she needed to but, with first place out of range, she was loading up 263kg to try to move up to second. She looked focussed and hit it hard but it just wasn't there on the day and she had to settle for the bronze medal.
Special mention to GBR's Sophia Ellis who pulled 245kg for the deadlift gold and moved herself into 4th place in a stacked class of incredible lifters.
Karlina Tongotea NZL 593kg
Agata Sitko POL 590.5kg
Jessica Buettner CAN 567.5kg
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