Elite Status For The 82.5 Division

[Jedd Johnson]

Well, I for one would actually be interested in Elite status if it's for weight classes. I never could get too excited about maybe eeking out an 800 which would earn me the right to finish last to all the 250#+, 9" handed monsters. Getting that "Elite" status at a given weight akin to PL, is a cool idea though

I hear ya. Makes sense.

[IROC-Z]

I probably don't have any right to give my opinion seeing as I've only competed in two grip contests, but I would like to throw a couple thoughts out here. I really like the idea of three seperate weight classes, but I'm not real thrilled about the idea of then dividing those weight classes even further with the Novice, Open and Elite designations. When I go to a contest, I'd like to have the opportunity to compete against the best guys out there. I want to go head to head with guys like Andrew, Jedd, Adam, Brent, etc. Now I don't think for one second that I can beat these guys, but I feel like competing against the best would give me added motivation to not only train harder but also to perform better on contest day. I would much sooner finish second last in a class with the best guys, rather than finish top three in a class that excludes the top performers.

[climber511]

Maybe because my career is almost over – or maybe just plain because – but I look at things a bit differently in a sort of historical perspective. Someday when I’m sitting around in my rocker drooling on myself – I’d like to be able to look back and show the grandkids where I stood “back in the day” when I was a young man competing in Grip in my sixties perhaps. So I like the idea of the lists by weight class with a simple age notation. I have zero desire for age groups in actual competition but just a notation might give other people who find themselves “not so young anymore” something to shoot for someday and get or keep them involved in competition as well. I’ll probably never make a 750# Elite Total but I sometimes find some pride in some Grip thing I do that puts me in there with guys 20, 30, or 40 years my junior. Up until now I never really felt like I had a fair chance in the comps – or to make a Top 50 list - going up against those who out weigh me by 50 to 100# - And I know I’ll get sand kicked in my face still in the 100K class but now it will be because they are simply stronger than me – not because they could make two of me. So the idea of 3 weight classes for comps and then a list for each class appeals to me quite a bit. I don’t care about getting another trophy as much as setting PRs and seeing where I stand against others around the world that are my size. The idea that I can almost instantly compare myself to a guy in Russia or Australia still seems unreal to a guy who grew up waiting for a couple months or more to read comp results in a magazine.

[Cannon]

I PM'd a bunch of top 82.5 guys to try and get them involved in the conversation. Here is a reply I got from Brandon Gerber which he authorized me to re-post. He also mentioned that he usually weighs 175-177 so it's not like he's barely on the edge of being out of this weight class with his current numbers:

Thanks for letting me put my input in on this topic. i think the total weight for the elite status for the 82.5kg class should probably be 700. this is because there are not a whole lot of people that are in that weight class that can even come close to that number. Also because the original elite status was 800, so the closer we make it to that, the more the people will be like "hey i might as well go for the heavy weight elite status rather than stay in my 82.5kg class" which would lose people in that weight class. Personally right now at this moment my total is just a hair over 700. which if you have a few people that could already qualify for it great, thats how you get it started. Thanks for getting with me about this. If you have any further questions you can get back with me.

Brandon

[Paul Knight]

Maybe because my career is almost over – or maybe just plain because – but I look at things a bit differently in a sort of historical perspective. Someday when I’m sitting around in my rocker drooling on myself – I’d like to be able to look back and show the grandkids where I stood “back in the day” when I was a young man competing in Grip in my sixties perhaps. So I like the idea of the lists by weight class with a simple age notation. I have zero desire for age groups in actual competition but just a notation might give other people who find themselves “not so young anymore” something to shoot for someday and get or keep them involved in competition as well. I’ll probably never make a 750# Elite Total but I sometimes find some pride in some Grip thing I do that puts me in there with guys 20, 30, or 40 years my junior. Up until now I never really felt like I had a fair chance in the comps – or to make a Top 50 list - going up against those who out weigh me by 50 to 100# - And I know I’ll get sand kicked in my face still in the 100K class but now it will be because they are simply stronger than me – not because they could make two of me. So the idea of 3 weight classes for comps and then a list for each class appeals to me quite a bit. I don’t care about getting another trophy as much as setting PRs and seeing where I stand against others around the world that are my size. The idea that I can almost instantly compare myself to a guy in Russia or Australia still seems unreal to a guy who grew up waiting for a couple months or more to read comp results in a magazine.

I think a masters list would be great ... why not? It's really not much work on the contest promotors side other than wirting down the competitors age and reporting it with all the other results.

My only concern now is, who will maintain such lists? The list responsibilities could be divided among bunch of people to make it more manageable. For example, Chris could maintain the masters list while Brent maintains the 100kg, Eric maintains the 82.5 kilo and Mikael maintains "x"kgs ... so on so forth - just examples

[Mikael Siversson]

I already maintain the 82.5k class and plan to maintain the 100k class as well unless someone else really wants to do it. This for the standardised events only though (not including grippers for example).

[Mikael Siversson]

We will also need to start up top50 lists for at least standardised events in the 100+ HW class. Old results done before the introduction of the 100k and 100k+ class are best kept in the already existing top50 list. We would thus have four categories to keep track of in for example the Europinch including 82.5k, 100k, 100+k and the non-weightclass one. For the new 100+ HW class we need, of course, to start off with Jedd as the current record holder. Unlike lifts done by people lighter than 82.5k and 100k before these classes were introduced, Jedd's lift was recognised as a world record attempt (and a successful one) on the day. My preference would be to transfer all competitors that have previously held the WR to the new 100+k class as a starting point. it is going to be a bit suboptimal no matter how we do this transfer (as David perhaps might have been below 100k).

What do you people think? As I have stated before records set in Chris' 94k were never recognised as WR attempts so they are not comparable to WR's set at a time when we did not have a 100k class.