The best raw male powerlifter in the IPF is once again the best raw male powerlifter in the IPF — Ray “Ray Ray” Williams has won the 2018 World Championships.
If we had to pick one lift Williams is known for it would be his monstrous squat, but this year everyone’s talking about his deadlift, which is the one lift in which he set a new record.
But man oh man, did he annihilate that record. The man pulled off a raw deadlift of 398.5 kilograms (878.5 pounds), breaking his own world record by 6 kilograms (13.2 pounds). Take a look at the pretty darn smooth lift below.
You can watch his old 392.5 kg (865.3lb) record below, which he made at the 2017 Arnold Sports Festival. This lift made him the first guy to total over 2,400 pounds in knee sleeves.
Note that this was the same day he made his world record 477.5-kilogram squat (a record that still stands) but let’s not get sidetracked from the real story, here: Ray Williams won the 2018 IPF Worlds. In addition to his gigantic deadlift he squatted 442.5 kilograms (975.5 pounds) for the gold medal in that lift (he went for 478kg but it was deemed high) and benched 242.5 kilograms (534.6 pounds) for bronze, managing a total of 1,083.5 kilos (2,388.7 pounds)
The “only” world record was the deadlift (a lot of folks think he should have gotten that new squat record, but rules are rules), however that total gave him the highest Wilks score of the contest with 578.81, just barely eking past Sergey Fedosienko’s Wilks of 578.54. Third place went to New Zealand’s Brett Gibbs with a Wilks of 555.85. Here they are looking pretty nonplussed by the whole endeavor.
[Watch Sergey Fedosienko’s unreal 4.6x bodyweight deadlift from this year’s competition here!]
At the time of writing, William has yet to make a statement regarding his performance, instead regramming a lot of other accounts talking about how fantastic his performance was — and his performance was fantastic. This is the fifth consecutive superheavyweight title Ray Williams has won. Congratulations to the man.
Related: How To Romanian Deadlift
Featured image via @theipf on Instagram
