Agata Sitko doesn’t need an introduction. At 21 years old, her achievements are legion.
In her first year of international competition, 2021, Sitko won the European Equipped Juniors and the World Equipped Open. The following year, she won the European Equipped Juniors, the European Equipped Open, the UK Arnold, and the World Classic Juniors. She won gold at the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, AL, that same year.
In February 2024, Sitko took home the grand prize from the Sheffield Powerlifting Championships, picking up £40,000.
The classic Open world title was the only one that eluded Sitko. She won the silver medal twice. However, in 2024, she finally stepped into the gold medal position. En route to victory, Sitko broke her bench press world record with a colossal 155.5-kilogram press. Check out the lift below, courtesy of the IPF’s Instagram page:
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Sitko used wrist wraps to assist her but no other supportive equipment. With forefingers on the rings, she gripped the barbell in the widest permissible style. The bar traveled smoothly to her chest, paused momentarily, and returned to lockout with much apparent effort.
The lift came amid Sitko’s third attempt at a classic Open world title. At the 2022 CWC in Sun City, South Africa, Canada’s Jessica Buettner pulled the biggest deadlift that any woman in the IPF had ever done raw at that time — 261.5 kilograms — to beat Sitko on bodyweight.
At the 2023 CWC in Malta, New Zealand’s Karlina Tongotea beat Sitko by 2.5 kilograms. In 2024, Sitko was unstoppable, finishing over 20 kilograms ahead.
The bench press wasn’t the only record that Sitko broke on the day. She added 2.5 kilograms to the total world record that Tongotea has been chipping away at for the past 18 months.
2024 IPF Classic World Championship Results — Agata Sitko (Poland), 76KG
- Squat
- 200 kilograms
- 207.5 kilograms
210 kilograms
- Bench Press
- 147.5 kilograms
- 152.5 kilograms
- 155 kilograms — IPF Open World Record
- Deadlift
- 235 kilograms
- 245 kilograms
- 250 kilograms
- Total — 613 kilograms — IPF Open World Record
Sitko won’t get much time to recover after her victory. She is on the roster for raw bench and powerlifting at the Euro Muscle Show in Amsterdam on July 13-14. If Sitko wins both, she will earn a 5,000 Euro bonus.
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Featured image: @theipf on Instagram