First published on IPF social media on 20th October 2023.
The 74kg class will close out the second day of lifting at the World Equipped in Lithuania. Last year's world champion, Kjell Egil Bakkelund of Norway, won't be defending his title this year so let's take a look at where that leaves the nominations:
1 Jarosław Olech POL - 867.5kg
2 Alexis Maher USA - 847.5kg
3 Alex Ochoa ECU - 815kg
Jarosław Olech is one of the most successful powerlifters in the IPF. He has been open world champion an incredible 16 times and taken the gold at The World Games three times. He still holds the squat and total world records in the 74s and, at nearly 50 years old, is still fighting at the front on the world's stage. Bakkelund is the only man who has ever beaten him at the world championships so could we see the veteran take the top spot once more?
He will have the steadily improving Alexis Maher to contend with this year. Maher is the deadlift world record holder in this class, having set the record at 355kg at The World Games in Birmingham, Alabama in 2022. He has hit 365kg at a local meet late last year - will he get the opportunity to try for it in Lithuania? It's not always possible to take WR attempts when you are fighting for podium places.
Alex Ochoa was the bronze medallist last year. He has been climbing the ranks for some time now and will be looking to make good use of the big bench press that has secured him the bench gold medal in the last two world championships.
The 83kg class will lift on the morning of Day three. Here are the top three nominations:
1 Mykola Barannik UKR - 922.5kg
2 Kai-Chieh Chiang TPE - 910kg
3 Vitalii Kolomiiets UKR - 890kg
Two-time world champion Mykola Barannik is back to defend his title. He broke the squat world record at last year's contest with a massive 375.5kg squat which helped him fend off USVI's Knute Douglas in an exciting battle.
We haven't seen quite as much of the man nominated in second, Kai-Chieh Chiang. We last saw him lift equipped at the 2018 world championships. He was, however, in Malta for Classic Worlds where he took the squat silver with 295kg. It's impossible to say how that will translate to the equipped platform in Lithuania but he is nominated with the biggest deadlift in the group so we are excited to see how this pans out.
Vitalii Kolomiets was the bronze medallist last year, his first world championships. He is a great allrounder and is at the head of a cluster of challengers. This promises to be a hard fought session and not to be missed.
Every session streamed live on YouTube and Facebook.
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