USAWA

The 2nd Two Fisted Challenge, held 27 – 28 September, featured a lot of big lifts, new champions, new contestants, and a lot of skinned fingers! This year we had entries from three gyms across the USAWA. On the Women’s side, Janet Thompson entered the fray and won the title for 2025. Mary McConnaughey finished third in her first year, and lifted the most in raw weight. Lisa Gore finished second while lifting about 25% more than last year. Only Allison Lupo had a larger improvement – up 50% from a year ago.

On the men’s side, Jeff Wenzel ran away from the field tallying nearly a ton after putting up over a ton in the One Ton Meet. Not only that, but he improved about 35% over last year. Abe Smith was the runner-up in raw weight, while Tony Lupo and Riley Wenzel battled for third place. The former lifted more in raw totals but the latter took third after Lynch and Age were considered. Riley was quite impressive in his first entry into this meet, breaking or establishing 11 records in 14 events. Abe and Tony were both up about 15% over last year as well. Three entered from high Country Vigour in 2025, and this year Jarrod Fobes got to compete injury free. He was strong enough to place 5th overall in raw weight, and not much separated him from 3rd. Sanjiv Gupta returned to the mix, and Elijah Conley got a few lifts in for his first competition, hitting age-weight records in all four events attempted. Sanjiv hit age-weight marks in 12 of 14 lifts which was 2nd on the men’s side. Only Logan Wenzel did better establishing all 14 age-weight records and finishing 5th overall at only age 10. We were also glad to have Jerome Licini enter the mix from Habecker’s Gym in Lebanon Valle, PA. He made a good strong entrance into the field, and given this is his rookie year, expect to see big gains next year.

Jeff Wenzel, Sanjiv Gupta, and Lisa Gore put up some strong numbers in their record day lifts. Check it out in the results posted here.

The final results with records noted are available for the 2025 IAWA Andy Goddard Memorial World Postal. Thanks to Chris Bass and Paul Barette for preparing these. The USAWA fared quite well thanks to the four clubs that participated. The four were Iron Throne, High Country Vigour, Frank’s Barbell Club, and Clark’s Gym. All in all the USAWA had by my count 25 new world records, three teams (Clark’s 1, Clark’s 2, and Franks Barbell Club) were part of the top 10 teams, and Frank’s Barbell Club and Clark’s Gym finished 5th and 2nd, respectively. The USAWA also claimed four of the 10 best lifters by age class (Dan Jones 40+, Jeff Wenzel 50+, Tony Lupo 55+, and Dave Deforest 65+) as well as eight (Jeff Wenzel, Dave DeForest, Riley Wenzel, Travis Luther, Tony Lupo, Dan Jones, Wade Marchand, and Kim VanWagner) of the top 20 individual lifters! Well done USAWA!

Congratulations to Kim for winning the women’s field and the overall title!  Jarrod won the men’s field but could not overcome the age-weight-gender adjustments.  Nisha won the junior field.

This was the inaugural installation of an OTSM event held in Colorado.  Given the popularity of Old Time Strongman, I wanted to make sure Colorado athletes had a chance to give it a try.  For over half the local field it was the first time lifting with Dinnie Rings.  In Colorado, we had (4) official lifters and (2) athletes unofficially giving All-Round weightlifting a try.  Jeff and Tony joined in from Missouri to round out the field.

Top Dinnie Lift – Jarrod Fobes – 506 pounds
Top Saxon Deadlift – Jeff Wenzel – 135 pounds

Colorado OTSM Classic

High Country Vigour
September 13, 2025
Meet Director: Sanjiv Gupta
Score Keeper: Sanjiv Gupta
The one official system was used for all lifts.
Officials: Jarrod Fobes, Sanjiv Gupta, Nisha Gupta, Tony Lupo, Allison Lupo, Bill Clark
Loaders: Jarrod, Sanjiv, Nisha, Kim, Greg, Billy
All lifts are recorded in pounds; All lifts performed to IAWA uniform standards.
Lifts: Dinnie Lift; Saxon Deadlift; Saxon Deadlift, 2×5 (exhibition lift)

Saxon Deadlift, 2×5 Exhibition

In addition to the (2) official lifts, a Saxon Deadlift, 2×5 was added as an exhibition.

• Sanjiv Gupta – 115 pounds
• Jarrod Fobes – 115 pounds
• Kim Van Wagner – 80 pounds
• Nisha Gupta – 45 pounds

The 2×5 is a completely different lift and the results show Kim and Nisha were able to lift 30-45% more with the 2×5 Saxon Bar, while Sanjiv and Jarrod did not show much difference between the 2×5 and the 3×4 Saxon Bar.

We used a Sorinex Bare Steel 3×4 Saxon Bar with an empty weight of 45 pounds. This implement was too heavy for our Junior lifter today. We used a custom fabricated Bare Steel 2×5 Saxon Bar with an empty weight of 35 pounds. This was suitable for all of our lifters. Jarrod missed his second attempt at 135 pounds, but would have likely shown an improvement with more conservative 2nd and 3rd attempts.

Record Session:

Jarrod Fobes – Hackenschmidt Floor Press – 300 pounds
Sanjiv Gupta – Deadlift, Fulton Bar – 213 pounds
Sanjiv Gupta – Deadlift, Fulton, Left – 113 pounds
Sanjiv Gupta – Deadlift, Fulton, Right – 108 pounds