Author – Jo Whiteley
The European Classic is underway over in Poland and the sub-juniors are putting on a great show.As you might expect, the home nation put up a fantastic team. In the women’s categories, Poland absolutely stormed the team award with two world champions and a whole bunch of silver and bronze medals.
Wiktoria Zapotoczna (POL) won the 52s in style, breaking the sub-junior world record with the 156kg deadlift in her first international competition. It was the SJ bench world record that her team mate Kaja Stabulewski annihilated on her way to victory in the 69s. Every bench she did was a world record and, in the end, she pushed it all the way up to 111kg. This was the biggest bench in any weight class and she also had the biggest deadlift at 190kg. Current SJ World Champ, she won the best lifter award in Turkiye and she’s pulled it off again here.
There are a fair few world records going back to Italy too. Current SJ World Champion, Giovanna Auletta (ITA) had a great day, winning the 57kg class and extending her own deadlift world record at 163kg. Fellow Italian, Asia Franchini absolutely dominated in the 76s. Her SJ squat world record of 171kg was also the biggest squat of the day in any weight class and helped her win 2 nd place Best Lifter.
Every class was well fought and it was great to see the amount of technique and hard work displayed by these young lifters. Take note, a lot of these lifters will be showing up in the juniors and open before you know it.