It has been an eventful two years filled with ups and down for powerlifting legend Kimberly Walford, although, judging from her last Instagram post hopefully her latest “up” trend continues. Yesterday, Walford shared her results from the Nauru Independence Day 50th Anniversary Powerlifting Championships on her Instagram page, and her most recent “up” is a qualification to the 2019 IPF Classic World Championships and two new Master’s 1 (M1) world records.
This is big news for Walford and all of her fans. Why? Well, less than a month ago, Walford was unable to officially compete at the IPF Classic World Championships/in the IPF for her nominated country the United States Virgin Islands. In May of 2018, Walford announced that she’d be missing the 2018 IPF Classic World Championships, and attending USPA Drug Tested Nationals instead (which she handily won!).
After many meetings with the IPF, Walford announced on January 1st (2019) that she was re-granted eligibility to compete for the United States Virgin Islands in the IPF and that ruling went into effect immediately. And now all of this brings us to the topic and significance of this article, as her latest performance has just officially stamped a ticket to the 2019 Classic World Championships.
In her Instagram video’s description Walford writes, “Sooo happy to have qualified for 2019 Classic Worlds in Sweden/broken the M1 DL and TL WRs!!.1st Open/M1 72kg, Best Open/M1 lifter, Female Champion of Champions (402.3#)182.5kg-(242.5#)110kg-(523.6#)237.5kg-(1168.45)530kg TL”
Continued, BW: “(156.52#)71kg. Huge proper “thank you’s” to everyone on FB because I don’t know how to do long post on IG. Posted 2nd attempt**no lift***248kg because it’s motivation, no video of 1st attempt. Nauru has been amazing!!!”
This latest performance only adds to Walford’s long list of accomplishments in powerlifting. Currently, Walford owns the IPF Women’s -72kg Classic world records for the deadlift (243kg) and total (540kg). On top of those records and as mentioned above, Walford now also owns the IPF Women’s -72kg Classic M1 world records in the deadlift (237.5kg) and total (530kg).
Like many others, we are thrilled to see Walford back on the IPF world-level platform this June, and to summarize it best like many of the comments on Instagram did, “The queen is back!”
Feature image from @trackfu Instagram page.
