USAWA

by Al Myers

It is always exciting to see new USAWA Records set or broken.  As our Record List gets longer and longer, getting new records becomes more difficult. The USAWA has been accumulating records for close to 25 years, and the USAWA  Record’s Director Joe Garcia has been the “man in charge” of this for nearly this entire period. That’s a lot of entering numbers!!  In fact at the Annual National Meeting, Joe announced that the USAWA Record List is approaching 10,000 records in length!  The lifters at this year’s Nationals “did their job” of adding to this list.  89 new USAWA Records were established.  I looked back at the list and believe it or not, but this year’s National Championships made the TOP TEN of ALL-TIME amongst the number of records in the Record List from National Championships! That is quite an accomplishment considering that we have now had 24 USAWA National Championships, and several Championships with more lifters and more lifts contested than this one.  That goes to show the quality of lifting that we had at this years Championship.  Of the lifts contested at this Championship, the One Arm Dumbbell Snatch provided the most records with 24 Records.  The Zercher Lift provided the fewest new records with 9.   Susan Sees and Helen Kahn tied with the most new records set in the Women’s Division with 9 records each. In the Men’s Division, Bob Geib and John O’Brien tied with 8 new records each.  I always notice when old records (those set years ago) get broken.  Dean Ross had this distinction of breaking the OLDEST RECORD with his 240# Zercher Lift in the 65+, 125+kg Class.  The previous record was held be Buck Harris at 220 pounds set at the 89 Nationals on June 25th, 1989.  Now lets take a look at the TOP TEN Nationals considering number of USAWA records:

RANK	RECORDS	EVENT	MEET DIRECTOR	LOCATION
1	119	2003 Nationals	Hartzell & LaRosa	Youngstown, OH
2	117	2004 Nationals	John Vernacchio	Lansdale, PA
3	116	2005 Nationals	Hartzell & LaRosa	Youngstown, OH
4	108	1990 Nationals	Attilio Alacchi	Akron, OH
5	107	1999 Nationals	Montini & McKean	Ambridge, PA
6	97	1997 Nationals	Clark & Garcia	Columbia, MO
7	95	1998 Nationals	Frank Ciavattone	Mansfield, MA
8	94	1989 Nationals	John Vernacchio	Plymouth Meeting, PA
9	90	1995 Nationals	Clark & Garcia	Columbia, MO
10 (tie)	89	2000 Nationals	Denny Habecker	Lebanon, PA
10 (tie)	89	2000 Nationals	Thom Van Vleck	Kirksville, MO

I would like to make the comment that this year (2011 National Championships) is the ONLY EVENT on this list where the meet contained less than 20 lifters.  That is something the lifters at this meet should be proud of! 

New USAWA records established at the 2011 USAWA National Championship – NationalsRecords

Coming tomorrow – The TOP TEN INDIVIDUALS who have records in the USAWA Record List that were set at a National Championship.