Five Lift Friday #4 — 2023 North American Open Series 1 Highlights
What is good FLF fam? In this Part II of our special (competition formerly known as the) Arnold series, we break down five of our favorite lifts and moments from the (how many is too) many stages of last weekend’s American Open Series 1.
So many epic lifts and storylines came out of Columbus, narrowing it to five is a near impossible task. Alas, we persevered.
Let’s get to it.
Aaron Williams’ ascent to dominance in the supers continued and we could not be more here for it. The man knocked down 170kg/374lbs in the snatch and 213kg/469lbs in the clean and jerk. To put the absurd pace of his development into context, his clean (no jerk, just clean) pr a year ago at this time was 182kg/401lbs, just 12kg over what he snatched last weekend. Dude is going plaid. Another wrinkle in his story comes in the wake of Keiser Witte’s 1-month ban for testing positive for cannabis. Due to the timing of the ban, Keiser became ineligible to compete at Pan Ams and ultimately the Olympics as a result. However, Williams’ performance has put him on the first Grand Prix team and now has a clear path to becoming an Olympian during his second year in the sport. You can’t make this stuff up.
2. Next up is another athlete with a bright future, long time friend of the club Lily Spry. She knocked down multiple PR’s last weekend and makes her Team USA debut in Albania at the Youth World Championships in a few weeks time.
Our first memories of Lily are as one the youngest athlete competing in our meets over five years ago, snatching and cleaning the marshmallow training plates. Now she is in high school and wearing a USA singlet. Incredible!
3. One of our favorite performances of the weekend was Morgan McCullough sending a 200kg clean and jerk to the shadow realm. I will always get riled up for a big clean and jerk attempt. His legs don’t seem bothered standing up any weight he attempts. He also snatched 152kg to score him a PR total at 352kg. It feels like he's been lifting as long as I can remember, but is somehow still not 20 yet. Look for him to crush some big lifts on the junior international stage this spring and summer.
4. We have to give some shine to one of our own, Joey Mandarino (trainers really do hate him!). After a tough snatch session going 1/3, he came back after the intermission laid down a perfect card in the clean and jerk, ending with this stellar 138kg/304lbs effort. This lift represented a lifetime PR. Knocking down a personal best on the competition platform is a holy grail moment for any athlete, so we could not be more stoked that he got to experience that. Salud!
5. Coming out of the 87+kg category, Sarah Uschmann stamped and submitted her romwod sponsorship application with her incredible 100kg snatch. It looks like she received a chiropractic adjustment while saving the bar overhead. Early candidate for save of the year for sure… She followed her snatch with a much more routine make at 118kg en route to a 218kg total and a loot of medals.
Training Hall No-Skip List
The No-Skip List is one of the most sacred traditions at Milwaukee Barbell, with origins tracing back to our original Florida Street training hall. Membership on this genre-bending list is exclusive (you’re more likely to win a Grammy than be elected). It's maintained orally. No one person knows the full list.
Each FLF we’ll unlock one entry here. Last week it was Get By by Talib Kweli. This week's banger...
A$AP Ferg - Work (REMIX)
Featured Product
Cuffed-style 100% hypoallergenic acrylic beanie
Embroidered logo
One size fits most
Rep your favorite barbell brand this winter
A portion of profits from all merch sales are invested in quality equipment for the Milwaukee Barbell community, so we can keep purveying the barbell lifestyle. 🤙🏼
