USAWA

Thanks Mike – I made the corrections to the result sheet. Thom was apparently reporting results from memory. Al

Hey, it was a little hectic that night!! That lift was called good as was several only to be thought about and then retracted. I told the guys I didn’t want us to sacrifice good judging for time constraints so we had two or three lifts completed, called good, and then a review of the rules, or judges getting together, or (and this is real sportsmanship) the lifter not feeling it was good enough.

On a side note, the last of the pledge checks came in (almost $3000 in total were were responsible for) and many, many positive comments. Janie Fouch, our school principal is sending me a thank you letter and I will share it’s contents on this board.

Hmmmmm…….. deemed good and then the judges got together and reversed the decision?? I didn’t know the USAWA was like the NFL and had “instant replay” to change official calls. So did you guys just get in a big huddle and “mull over” the calls to build suspense for the crowd? Or was it because everyone forgot their rulebooks? Al

Here’s what would happen. We had loaders and we would move a weight up and call for the lifter. We were needing to hit an attempt about every 90 seconds to make this successful. I know at certain weights, there might be 5,6, or more attempts and as soon as one lifter was done, the next would step up. Well, for example, I got a side press and it was passed, then Joe got out the RULE BOOK and pointed out that I did not have my feet close enough so I had to take it again. Normally, we would have just made sure on the rules of the lift BEFORE doing the lift, but with the rapid fire set up it made it difficult. Now, that being said, I honestly feel that every lift we did was 100% legit. One of the big reasons was experienced judges like Joe & Chad being there. I recall having a question in my mind on a lift, but the lifter was ready so I ended up peeling thru my rule book while the lift was being done only to discover I was right in my interpretation and in that case, the lift was good and no big deal.

I learned a lot and “if” we do this again I know how I want to do it! thom

Thom – overall it sounded like a great success! Record Days are the hardest for officials because a great selection of lifts are usually done. When a meet only has a few, an official can go through the Rulebook on only those lifts beforehand. Speaking of Rulebooks – does anyone need a new one with the changes made this year? Al

I’m going to agree with Thom, the lifts that passed were good. We were scrambling to have the rule book out before someone did a lift, to get the particulars, but on a few attempts, the lift proceeded too quickly. Also, I think that Mike and Chad did a good job on the judging. Normally, in a competition I wouldn’t have the ‘replay’ effect, but like Thom stated, it was a little hectic, only happened for a couple of lifts and I think everyone wanted ‘good’ lifts for the event.