USAWA

With so many new people having joined USAWA in the past few years, and now a brand new crop of world record holders in Canada, I’d like to highlight a very special upcoming meet all our members should know about: the 2024 IAWA Gold Cup, to be held on November 2 in Norwood, MA, near Boston.

The Gold Cup is an international record breaker event, where lifters choose an IAWA lift to contest. The catch is that all attempts, even your opener, must be done at a record breaking poundage. The winner is the person who does the most impressive lift, as calculated through Blindt coefficients. (More on the scoring in a minute.)

The Gold Cup is not held on US soil very often; in other years you might have to fly to Australia or the UK to compete. But for 2024, the Gold Cup is coming to us, and is being hosted in Norwood, Massachusetts, presented by Frank’s Barbell Club. The full information on how to enter the Gold Cup is here, including information about the banquet and recommendations for local hotels.

How the Gold Cup works

There are two eligibility requirements for lifters to compete in the Gold Cup.

1. You must be a member of IAWA or an affiliate (if you are a USAWA member, you’re good)
2. You must already hold an IAWA world record (but if you do not hold a world record, you can still compete in the Silver Cup)

The day begins (after weigh-ins) with the Silver Cup, a choose-your-own-lift competition for those who do not already hold an IAWA world record. So don’t skip this meet just because you haven’t had a chance to set a world record yet! You can still compete in the Silver Cup and, in the process, perhaps earn your first world record.

Then comes the Gold Cup. Lifters may choose any IAWA lift that has a Blindt coefficient. The Blindt coefficients are sort of a “difficulty factor” that is used to compare lifts to each other. Lifts that are typically done with light weights have higher Blindt coefficients; those that are typically done with heavy weights have low Blindt coefficients. Each lifter’s score is multiplied by the Blindt coefficient for the lift they did.

For example, the highest Blindt coefficient is 5.4637, for the One Hand Pinch Grip Clean and Press. The lowest is 0.0955, for the Harness Lift. That means a 20-kilogram pinch grip clean and press is roughly equivalent to a 1,144-kilogram harness lift. The Blindt coefficients are calculated from existing world records, so they reflect the weights people have actually managed to lift.

The usual age, gender, and bodyweight adjustments are all used as well. This competition format means that two lifters can be of different ages, different weight classes, different genders, and choose different lifts for the competition–and they can still be ranked against each other to determine a winner.

The last few winners of the Gold Cup include:

• 2023 – Danny Kingsland (UK) with a 33 kg left handed strict bent press
• 2022 – Chad Ullom (USA) with a 332.5 kg Shanks lift (Dinnie lift)
• 2021 – Jim Gardner (UK) with a 91 kg shoulder drop
• 2019 – Al Myers (USA) with a 90 kg ring fingers straddle (Jefferson) deadlift
• 2018 – Paul Barette (UK) with a 32.5 kg right handed strict bent press

How to enter

To enter the Gold Cup (or the Silver Cup), you can find the information and entry form here. (Choose your lift from among the lifts in the IAWA Rule Book here.) The competition is held on November 2, 2024, but entries close a month earlier, on October 2, 2024. So you have about a month to choose your lift and sign up!