2017 May - APL World Armlifting Championship - Eric Roussin

[Eric Roussin]

This past weekend I travelled to the other side of the world to compete in the Armlifting Professional League (APL) World Armlifting Championship. The contest was held in beautiful St. Petersburg Russia. Approximately 75 competitors from 13 countries took part in the extravaganza: a massive grip sport contest that lasted two 13-hour days.

Last year I was the sole North American competitor in attendance, but this year a small United States contingent made the trip to Russia: Odd Haugen, Riccardo Magni, and Clay Edgin. Randall Strossen also attended as a special invitee and to cover the event for Milo. Together, along Arto Joronen and Juha Lehtimaki from Finland, we had a good little cheering section going. We also consumed about a dozen portions of delicious Beef Stroganoff over the weekend.

This write-up focusses primarily on my results – I hope some of the other attendees also share their experiences on this board.

I arrived in St. Petersburg on Friday afternoon, checked into my hotel room, and then went directly to weigh in. I had cut a few pounds of water weight over the course of several days leading up to the contest, and expected the scale to show about 89 kg. Unfortunately, it showed 89.9 kg. It wasn’t an issue to make the 90 kg class, but lighter is better because body weight acts as a tie-breaker when two competitors lift the same weight. Sure enough, there were several competitors who weighed about a couple hundred grams less than me. Oh well.

I was confident heading into Day 1. While last year the Silver Bullet was contested in a single open weight class, this year the competitors were split up into two classes: those weighing up to 100 kg, and those weighing more than 100 kg. Last year I had the second best result among the lighter weight competitors, so I figured I would have a good shot at winning a medal. The second event on Day 2 was the Rolling Thunder. I easily won this event in my weight class last year, so I was coming in expecting to win again this year. This was also my first year of eligibility to compete in the 40+ Years division, and I figured I’d have a shot at placing in this division as well. The final event on Day 3 was the IronMind Hub. While I’m able to put up decent numbers with the Hub, I knew they would be no match for several of the athletes in attendance, so I decided to conserve my strength for Day 2.

Silver Bullet

On the Silver Bullet event, I managed a hold of 27 seconds. Last year at this event I held the SB for 28 seconds. I thought I’d get about 10 seconds more, based on recent training, but I wasn’t too displeased with the result. In my class, though, was Dmitriy Suhovarov, the world record holder. I expected he would get the top time, and I was right. But I had the next best result and won the silver medal. The day was starting off well for me.

Rolling Thunder

The masters (40+ Years) Rolling Thunder class was run prior to the open 90 kg RT class. I opened successfully with a lift of 90 kg, then went to 95 kg for my second attempt which I also hit. By this point, I had secured a victory in the class, so I opted to save my strength for the 90 kg class rather than make a third attempt.

In the 90 kg RT class, I knew I’d face more competition. Alexander Filimonov succeeded with a lift of 98 kg in the Juniors division, which was run just prior to the Masters classes. At the World Championship, rather than competing in the same event twice, you have the option to either port over the results from your first class, or compete once again (and lose the option of porting your results). Alexander was satisfied with his lift of 98 kg, so he decided to use that result for the 90 kg class. I chose to compete again, because I wanted to try to win the class and my result in the Masters division was not sufficient. My confidence was a bit rattled when I saw that a competitor was opening with a lift of 100 kg. The competitor was a Russian by the name of Salavat Kadyrov (who also happens to be an elite armwrestler). He said he would be trying to hit 110 kg in the competition. I’ve lifted 110 kg in competition before, but did not feel this weight was within range for me on this day. I decided to open with 95 kg and see how Salavat would do. The 95 came up nicely, but Salavat had a hard time with 100. He got it up, but I suspected he wouldn’t be able to lift much more. I lifted 100 on my second attempt, putting me in second place for the time being (Salavat weighed less than me). Salavat tried 103 and failed, meaning that if I lifted 103 I would take first place. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do it, but the weight came up. I was thrilled to repeat as world champion in this discipline! Interestingly, it was the exact same weight I lifted to win the event last year.

Many competitors seemed to have a hard time with the RT this year. In fact, the top lift was only 105 kg, while last year 125 kg was lifted (but then again, Kyrill Sarychev was not in attendance this time). My lift of 103 kg tied for the biggest lift of the day!

Day 1 was a complete success for me. After a surprisingly decent night of sleep, I was back at the venue Sunday morning for the Apollon’s Axle event. Last year I lost this event on tie-break. Russia’s Evgeniy Kuka and I had both managed lifts of 190 kg, but he won because he weighed 2 kg less than me. He wasn’t in attendance, so I assumed I would have a good chance of winning the axle event this year. Two more events were contested on Day 2: the Saxon Bar and the Excalibur (a device very similar to the FBBC Jug). I was looking forward to competing in the Saxon Bar, because I’d been training it and my numbers had been pretty good in recent months. I chose not to compete in the Excalibur. I like it, but it puts a lot of pressure on my bicep, and with the biggest pro armwrestling tournament of the year coming up at the end of June, I didn’t want to risk injury.

Apollon’s Axle

As was done for the RT, the masters (40+ Years) Rolling Thunder class was run prior to the open 90 kg RT class. The masters division consisted of a single open weight class. Russia’s Andrey Sharkov was in my class, and I knew I would not beat him. However, I figured I’d have a good chance of taking second. Little did I know there was a man by the name of Dmitriy Burlakov who was also very, very strong. He opened at 180 kg, which impressed me, especially considering he weighed 1 kg less than me. He was opening at more than double body weight! I like to make sure I get on the board with my first attempt, so I started at only 165 kg. That felt fine, so I went to 180 for my second attempt. That also went up relatively easily. Dmitriy successfully lifted 185 on his second attempt. He was planning on attempting 190 for his final attempt. Even if we were both successful at 190, I would still lose on bodyweight (this is exactly what happened last year). So I decided to attempt 192. Once he noticed this, he changed his attempt to 192. I figured he might fail at this weight, and it turns out I was right. He got the bar up, but dropped it just short of locking it out. So then it was down to me. Lift 192 and take the silver, or fail and take the bronze. I got the weight off the ground, but not much higher. Dmitriy was the stronger man this day. Andrey won the class with a lift of 205.

Next up for me was the 90 kg class. Both Dmitriy and I decided to compete, rather than use our scores from the masters division. We both managed better lifts. I managed a lift of 185 and this time Dmitriy successfully lifted 192. I felt 190 was out of range for me on this day. I would have attempted in on my third attempt, but another competitor, Russia’s Fedor Rioschin, was keeping the pressure on. He successfully lifted 182 on his third attempt. 185 was the safer call to secure the silver medal. For the second year in a row, I managed to take second place in this event.

Saxon Bar

Last year, the Saxon Bar was contested as a single open weight class event. Due to its popularity, two classes were created this time: up to 100 kg, and over 100 kg. I felt I had a good chance of placing in the 100 kg class, considering I took third last year in the open class. I soon learned that Dmitriy Burkalov is not a one-trick pony – he also has great pinching strength. He opened at 90 kg. I was pretty confident I could lift this weight, but not confident enough to try it on my first attempt. I opted to open at 82.5, which was the second highest opening weight among the 16 competitors. Both Dmitriy and I were successful in our lifts. Luckily, the Saxon Bar was particularly “grippy”: probably the best one I’ve ever felt. I went for 92.5 kg on my second attempt (which is 2.5 kg heavier than the weight I lifted last year) and it came up quite nicely. Dmitriy lifted 100 on his second attempt. He went to 105 for his third attempt. I decided not to try to challenge him for first, because it would require a lift of 107.5, a weight quite a bit higher than I’ve ever lifted with the Saxon Bar. So it looked like I’d finish in second place, when I saw a competitor was planning on attempting 100 kg on his final attempt. This competitor, Fedor Rioschin, failed on his first attempt at 80 kg, so I thought it was unlikely he would be successful in lifting 100 kg. I was considering going to 100 as well, but I realized that if we were both successful, he’d finish ahead of me because he’d a pound lighter. Rather than attempt 102.5, which I felt was risky, I decided to go to 97.5. I was more confident in attempting this weight, and it seemed to be the best option to secure a medal. But when Fedor saw that I was only attempting 97.5, he dropped his attempt to 97.5 as well (as he was fully aware of the tie-break rules). We were both successful with our lifts. Fedor must have missed his first due to a lack of concentration, not a lack of strength. So Dmitriy took the gold, Fedor took the silver, and I took the bronze.

My objective going into this contest was to medal in every event. I achieved this objective! Six medals in six events: two gold, two silver, and two bronze.

There were many strong competitors in St. Petersburg. I was aware of Odd Haugen’s strength, and he did not disappoint: he took home four gold medals! But there were a couple of competitors that I didn’t know who really impressed me:

Dmitriy Burlakov. Very densely muscled, Dmitriy lifted 192 kg with the Axle and 107.5 kg with the Saxon Bar, both APL weight class world records. After the comp, we lifted 110 with the Saxon Bar, tying the top lift of the day! He’s also older and lighter than me.

Sergey Kuliasov. Another very muscular Russian. Despite being the one of the lightest competitors in his class (103 kg in the 110 kg class), he managed to earn three gold medals in the three events in which he competed! He won the open weight class Excalibur event with a lift of 125 kg, but more impressively, he lifted 213.5 kg with the Apollon’s Axle – the top lift of the day! Sergey also happens to be an elite level armwrestler.

The entire APL crew did an outstanding job throughout the weekend. Organizing and running a contest of this size is no easy task, but the APL manages to do it very well. I hope to return next year.

[terminal]

Congratulations Eric! Nice write-up too.

[Royz]

6 hours ago, Eric Roussin said:

Approximately 75 competitors from 13 countries

Those are serious numbers for a grip comp! Congrats on all the medals Eric. Thanks for the write-up. Any pictures or vids?

[Kashtan]

Thanks for the awesome write-up Eric!

[Ivan Pupchenko]

11 hours ago, Eric Roussin said:

...

What do you think about the work of judges, Eric? Competitors post videos in VK - on the first viewed video from SB... the time counted, during which the second hand held the strip on which the disc hangs - this is seven seconds ... I have my negative experience of participating in APL and WAA and it will be hard for me to change my opinion in a good way someday. But I'm interested in your opinion!

[Eric Roussin]

1 hour ago, Ivan Pupchenko said:

What do you think about the work of judges, Eric? Competitors post videos in VK - on the first viewed video from SB... the time counted, during which the second hand held the strip on which the disc hangs - this is seven seconds ... I have my negative experience of participating in APL and WAA and it will be hard for me to change my opinion in a good way someday. But I'm interested in your opinion!

I did not notice this on the Silver Bullet. If this happened, it's a pretty significant mistake.

I can say that I thought the judging was very good overall. In my opinion, the only event that created some difficulties was the Hub. There are so many minor variations in finger placement, that it's sometimes difficult to determine exactly what is allowed and what isn't. The rule states that all finger tips need to touch the base at the beginning of the lift, but it is permissible for some fingers to lose contact with the base as the weight is lifted. Determining exactly when fingers were losing contact was proving to be a bit difficult and consequently similar lifts were disqualified while others were passed. Judging difficulties for this event is the main reason I'm including it less and less in the grip contests I host.

[Ivan Pupchenko]

3 hours ago, Eric Roussin said:

...

Thanks for expressed your opinion! Although I "closed" these organizations for myself, I hope that incorrect and biased judging will be less with each competition. Because any mistake, or even more, deliberate fraud casts shadow on our entire sport!..

[riccardomagni]

Well said...

[anwnate]

Fantastic write up!  Congrats again!

[Jedd Johnson]

@Eric Roussin Do you care if we include your write-up in an episode of TWIG?  Great write-up by the way, bro!  And sorry to hear about the inconsistent judging.  Man, I hate hearing that.  I can understand the Hub being difficult to judge, but the Silver Bullet - counting time where the dude's hand is still holding the strap?  That's insane.

[Eric Roussin]

Sure, you can use it. Yeah, I wasn't aware of the strap thing, and I don't recall seeing any commotion. But I do want to reiterate that I feel the judging was solid in the other events.

[Kashtan]

On 17.05.2017 at 8:11 PM, Eric Roussin said:

I did not notice this on the Silver Bullet. If this happened, it's a pretty significant mistake.

I can say that I thought the judging was very good overall. In my opinion, the only event that created some difficulties was the Hub. There are so many minor variations in finger placement, that it's sometimes difficult to determine exactly what is allowed and what isn't. The rule states that all finger tips need to touch the base at the beginning of the lift, but it is permissible for some fingers to lose contact with the base as the weight is lifted. Determining exactly when fingers were losing contact was proving to be a bit difficult and consequently similar lifts were disqualified while others were passed. Judging difficulties for this event is the main reason I'm including it less and less in the grip contests I host.

Im find this video Eric, about said Ivan. Lolita Sevlikyan hold SB around 31sec, but judge of APL fix - 37.47 sec. 

Check.

 

Bullet 31 or 37 sec.mp4

[Ivan Pupchenko]

On 20.05.2017 at 5:55 PM, Eric Roussin said:

...

The winner in the hub lift his weight with hub pressing to stomach ... But maybe it's normal...

https://vk.com/irongrip?z=video1939062_456239025%2Ffd54ba3028a1545169%2Fpl_post_-4840890_69718

 

The last time I lift the IM hub on 2014'World Championship in Koktebel - on that hub, chalk almost did not stick. The paint of this hub allows to rub chalk like in raw metal... Interesting evolution of IM products...
And the judges were not allowed to rub chalk to hub, assistants wiped it after each attempt in 2014...

In general, somebody for the records only training is not enough)))

[Eric Roussin]

I noticed this (hub pressed to stomach) when it happened, but the judges did not. I think the refs mostly focus on where the fingers are being placed, and don't think to look closely at body contact. If I was officiating, I would have disqualified this lift.

[Jedd Johnson]

WOW!  That was BLATANT!!!