I only wish my elbows were ready to take a real training load. Though, perhaps, because of my injury, I am able to focus more on learning from the training of others than myself while on this trip. So, yeah , I'm happy ; the universe is taking care of me.
The goods :
We are posting tons of videos live from Kazakhstan on Instagram , YouTube , Facebook on the following accounts :
@ristosports ( same for all 3 sites)
@ristoweightlifting
@gwensisto ( same handle for all 3sites)
@lgoffficial
Learning from the Kazakhstan Youth Nationals
My Risto Sports teammate and daughter, Gwendolyn Rojas , had the honor of competing as a special guest lifter at the Kazakhstan Youth Nationals.
Unlike in the USA, the Kaz youth nationals go by IWF age groups, which means there is only one age division - under 17. The weight classes are also all by the IWF youth classes. This is actually how USAW was organized when I was a youth - there was 1 17&under division- whereas , today , there are 13&under,14-15 and 16-17 age groups at the uSAW youth nationals .
There were 220 lifters with entries finalized at the technical meeting . It is normally a 5 day event with 2 sessions each day. Because of the venue availability and pricing , the competition was condensed to 3 days - Sat-Monday.
Lg lifted day 1 in the 48kg category. She weighed in very light 46.6kgs . She was the youngest and lightest in her class. The oldest competitor would be 16 this year. For Kazakh standards , LG is very competitive . Here she is getting a special award for her competition exhibition;
Below are the declared staring attempts for the combined 44kg and 48kg session which shows LG , the 2014 US youth champion , in a very competitive position at these nationals .
The attempt board was simple penciled in attempts that were then traced over in market to denote successful or unsuccessful lift.
The percentage of made lifts are very high, probably around 80+% . The level of technique was very good . Even lifters who could not afford good weightlifting shoes managed to have good technique. The youngest lifter was probably 8 yr old Anya of Karragunda- even her technique was great and better than 90% of the lifters at the last U.S. Youth nationals. Here's 8 yr old Anya who requested this selfie with me in the training hall ( the only English word every kid knew was "selfie" )
The class was won with 110kg. See LGs lifting on our Instagram page.
Every class was drug tested with the top 3 and a random selected from each class to be tested.
Many of us westerners would expect that the competition would be stacked with Chinshanlos and Ilya Ilyin s. That was not the case. In reality, all the winning lifters are at a level similar to the USA youth nationals winning results( yes with some classes much more competitive in the US, some more competitive in Kazakhstan ), except that their technique is much better than at US nationals. It seems the vision is more long term and that top youth lifters in Kazakhstan have a better transition to the Jr and senior levels. There is much more emphasis on getting to the senior national team, whereas some of our youth lifters just want to make a youth world team and quit. The trajectory is totally different .
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