2024 National Championship Meet Results
The 2024 USAWA National Championship was held in Columbia, Missouri last week. Bill Clark, who hosted the meet, writes:
THE CHAMPIONS REIGN – BETH AND ABE RETAIN TITLES
There was little doubt after the initial event that Beth Skwarecki and Abe Smith would retain their national titles – and so it was – with 18 lifters on hand – the same as the meet drew in 2023.
Clark’s Gym, the meet sponsor for the second year in a row and the fifth time dating back to 1995, 1997 and 2001, won the team title by sweeping the first six places on the men’s side and two of the top four women.
Randy Smith, who came from Upper Michigan, was the men’s runner-up, followed by a pair of newcomers to the Nationals – Philip Marlin in third and Jeff Wenzel in fourth.
Lisa Gore, a gym member for less than two months, took third behind Beth and Stacy Todd. Allison Lupo was a close fourth.
The four Todd kids – two girls and two boys from the homes of Eric and Chris Todd – put on a great demonstration of both skill and strength and showed the flexibility and feel for the game that predicted a bright future – maybe in the Olympic Lift game as well as the odd lifts.
One of the negatives of the championship weekend was the failure of Kevin Fulton to free himself from weather-related farm problems to make it to the meet that was to honor him as a founding leader in the USAWA – the guy for whom the Fulton Bar was named.
Two of the old-timers who have been around for more than three decades were on hand. John Carter finished sixth overall and Denny Habecker, from Lebanon, Pa., was in seventh place. Habecker was the oldest lifter in the meet at 81. He brought along a guest – Steve Gardner, the long-time leader of the IAWA-UK – the British version of the USAWA.
Results are in the attached document.
