The rise of Mo Sulayman has been meteoric. After dabbling in university lifting and then the juniors, Mo burst onto the open scene by winning the 105kg class at the 2021 British. A year later, he was part of an incredible battle in the 105s where the British deadlift record was knocked about like a tennis ball. He put in a phenomenal performance in South Africa at the 2022 World Championship, collecting a bronze medal on bench, a silver on deadlift and overall third place. A brilliant debut on the world's stage which also put him right at the top of the British men's rankings.
He missed the British this year due to a last minute call up to Sheffield in March. It's hard to say that he underperformed at that competition when he scored a PB total, but he did not manage to capitalise fully on his potential and he left a lot of kilos behind that day.
12 weeks later and Mo was in the midst of a fierce 105kg class at Classic Worlds in Malta, 30 lifters deep and packed full of world champions and world record holders. He opened his squat with 300kg and, while it was completely fine, it wasn't quite as fast or as easy as we would have liked to see. 320kg went on for his second and it was a tough fight to push through the sticking point. Clearly his limit was close and, indeed, 325kg was not there on his third. Not what he was hoping for.
Bench tracked better and he matched his 207.5kg best. A weight that would have taken the bronze medal last year was only enough for 6th this year. He was also in 6th place overall going into deadlifts with an intense battle raging ahead of him - could he sneak through on deadlift?
Mo opened with 340kg - a reasonable place to start for a deadlifter who likes to take big jumps. Disaster struck though when what should have been an easy pull faltered and wouldn't lock out. He grabbed his hand as he left the platform and it looked like the spectre of cramp was stalking Mo again.
He re-took the weight and got it all the way but he didn't seem his usual self and it looked like he would not be entertaining the crowd with a huge deadlift this time around. 352.5kg for his final lift got him back up to 6th overall, but this was not the day we wanted for Mo.
We hope that Mo can figure out the cramping issue - we need Britain's showman back on the platform and performing at his best. Fingers crossed for Euros.
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