Originally published on IPF social media on 4th November 2023
The 93kg class will lift on Wednesday 15th November at Equipped Worlds in Lithuania. The B group will lift in the morning session and the A group will lift in PrimeTime, later the same day. The Prime Time session will be broadcast live in its entirety on Eurosport 1 and Eurosport Asia. Let's take a look at the top nominations:
1 Kostiantyn Musiienko UKR - 1064kg
2 Volodymyr Rysiyev UKR - 985kg
3 Noah Johnson USA - 965kg
Kostiantyn Musiienko is nominated way ahead of anyone else. Part of the reason is that tremendous bench press. A world record press of 351.5kg forms part of his nominated total, set at Viborg last year, and that bench is easily 65kg high than anyone else in class. That's a big gap to close. Not just a bench presser, the current world champion also has the highest nominated squat. He has set the target for everyone else in the 93s.
One man who is going to attempt to catch Musiienko is his team-mate, Volodymyr Rysiyev. Three-time world champion himself, this veteran campaigner won the gold in the heavyweight class at the World Games in Birmingham, Alabama last year. He has totalled as high as 1039kg in recent years so this is not as much of a one horse race as it first seems.
The two Ukrainians have the fast improving American to contend with - Noah Johnson. The 2018 sub-junior world champion took fourth place last year but has added many kilos to his total since then and stands a good chance of making the podium this year.
The 105kg class will lift on Thursday evening, 16th November. Here are the nominations:
1 Sergii Bilyi UKR - 1050kg
2 Ian Bell USA - 1022.5kg
3 Sascha Stendebach GER - 1020kg
Sergii Bilyi is the three time world champion at the head of this class. He holds the total world record at 1092.5kg so this nomination does not demonstrate his full potential. He had an exciting battle with Oleksandr Rubets last year, beating Rubets on bodyweight with his final pull.
Rubets is not lifting this year but second generation powerlifter, Ian Bell, is right behind Bilyi. He struggled last year on bench - his nominated total here is from the 2022 World Games where he secured the silver medal behind Rysiyev. He is a fierce competitor and will be looking to come back strong from his disappointment in Denmark.
He seems closely matched with Sascha Stendebach who is nominated 2.5kg behind. We have seen Stendebach more in the classic competitions than equipped in recent years but this nominated total is recent - from German nationals in January. Stendebach and Bell are both big deadlifters so hopefully we are in for an exciting deadlift battle to settle the podium places.
Don't discount Denmark's Nicki Lentz though. Squat world record holder in the 93kg class, he is still filling out the 105s and may well have some chunky gains to put on display.
You won't want to miss a second. Streamed live and for free on the Olympics YouTube channel and, in part, on Eurosport.
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