If you haven’t heard of Agata Sitko, you haven’t been paying attention. The Junior Polish powerlifter has collected scalps on the lifting platform for the last three years. She is the top-ranked powerlifter in the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) in raw and equipped disciplines.
Sitko won The 2024 Sheffield Powerlifting Championships with an incredible nine for nine performance, hitting a huge personal best on total, despite having cut into the weight class below. That day’s work netted Sitko £40,000 (~$50,000) and catapulted her to the top of the IPF raw rankings with a GL point score of 124.40.
Sitko is preparing for the 2024 IPF Classic World Championships in Druskininkai, Lithuania, and she will likely come in hot. Check out her latest training update on her Instagram page, wherein she scores some huge numbers on an SBD day, including a total of two kilograms over the current IPF raw world record of 610.5 kilograms:
Sitko begins the session with a small personal best on squat. Her biggest raw squat in competition is the 202.5 kilograms she did at the 2022 European Powerlifting Federation (EPF) European classic. Still, she finally pushed that to 205 kilograms in training.
“It took me almost two years to hit a 2.5-kilogram squat PR, and I’m so happy about it.”
The squat seemed at the top end of strength, but her positioning was strong, and a triumphant smile spread across her face halfway up, showing that she knew she’d nailed it.
The bench press shown in the video is “touch and go” (i.e., not paused on the chest). At 160 kilograms, it’s 5.5 kilograms over Sitko’s bench press world record in the 76KG class. She has the distinction of holding the IPF bench press world records in three weight classes now — 69KG, 76KG, and 84KG, an unparalleled achievement.
Sitko notes in her caption that she did a paused 157.5-kilogram bench press immediately before the top single.
Deadlifts completed the session, and Sitko locked out 247.5 kilograms in what she describes as a “grind PR.”
“Deadlifts didn’t move today, but at least I hit the longest grind of my life”
With the squat, bench, and deadlift taken together, that gives Sitko a training total of 612.5 kilograms — two kilograms over the total world record in the 76KG class currently held by New Zealand’s Karlina Tongotea.
Although Sitko competed in the 69KG class at Sheffield, she returned to 76KG for the 2024 IPF Classic World Championships and will face Tongotea for the second straight year.
Sitko was the silver medalist at the two most recent Classic World Championships, losing on bodyweight in 2022 and by only 2.5 kilograms in 2023. This contest remains one of the few that Sitko hasn’t yet won. She carries considerable momentum into the 2024 edition and will be hard to beat.
Sitko lifts in the prime-time session at the 2024 IPF Classic World Championships on June 21, 2024. This session promises to be a fierce battle and is one of the most highly-anticipated showdowns of the entire competition. The event will be live-streamed for free on the Olympic and Olympics YouTube channels.
Featured image: @ja.gata_sitko on Instagram
