The 2024 Sheffield Powerlifting Championships are fast approaching. One of the biggest meets in competitive powerlifting with a substantial prize purse — over half a million dollars — drawing some of the sport’s best athletes will take place on Feb. 10, 2024, at City Hall in Sheffield, UK.
Among those athletes is New Zealand’s Karlina Tongotea. Typically competing in the women’s 76-kilogram class, Tongotea holds the IPF world record raw squat of 225.5 kilograms (497.1 pounds). However, that does not seem to be the top of Tongotea’s range.
On Jan. 4, 2023, Tongotea posted a video to her Instagram page wherein she squatted 228 kilograms (502.7 pounds) raw — 2.5 kilograms more than her current IPF world record. Check it out below:
Tongotea wore wrist wraps and a lifting belt for her squat. She reached what appeared to be more than sufficient depth and endured a small grind during her ascent, accented by the visible shaking of the weight plates. Despite the struggle, the lift never seemed in doubt en route to the lockout.
While Tongotea was slightly over her typical weight cap at 77.2 kilograms bodyweight at the time of her training squat, it remains indicative of her strength gains during her 2024 Sheffield prep. With nearly a month and a half left to drop the excess kilogram while training with these heavy loads, it is likely that Tongotea could call for an IPF world record weight during one of her attempts.
Unlike most competitive powerlifting meets where athletes compete against other athletes in their weight class, the Sheffield meet will rank athletes based on their proportion of the world record in their weight class.
The 2023 Sheffield Powerlifting Roster
- Jesus Olivares (USA)
- Evie Corrigan (New Zealand)
- Tiffany Chapon (France)
- Natalie Richards (USA)
- Panagiotis Tarinidis (France)
- Carola Garra (Italy)
- Prescillia Bavoil (France)
- Delaney Wallace (USA)
- Karlina Tongotea (New Zealand)
- Jonathan Cayco (USA)
- Amanda Lawrence (USA)
- Anatolii Novopismennyi (Ukraine)
- Brittany Schlater (Canada)
- Carl Johansson (Sweden)
- Tony Cliffe (UK)
- Gustav Hedlund (Sweden)
- Sonita Muluh (Belgium)
- Kyota Ushiyama (Japan)
- Tim Monigatti (New Zealand)
- Carlos Petterson-Grifith (Guyana)
- Gavin Adin (USA)
- Jade Jacob (France)
- Noémie Allabert (France)
- Agata Sitko (Poland)
[Related: The Guide to Arm Training for Powerlifters]
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- The Best Powerlifting Workouts for Beginners to Break Into the Sport
Featured image: @karlina23 on Instagram
