We’ve been seeing some seriously earthshaking lifts come out of the IPF-affiliated European Equipped Powerlifting Championships that are taking place this week in Malaga, Spain.
Earlier this week, we saw the 23-year-old Norwegian athlete Karen Hesthammer set a new junior world record in the squat after she managed to lift 185.5 kilograms (408.9lb) at 52kg bodyweight.
Now another junior powerlifter, Ukrainian athlete Oleksandr Rubets, has made another unprecedented achievement in the sport by squatting 431 kilograms (950 pounds) in the 105kg weight class in a single-ply suit — a new open world record, the heaviest ever squatted for his weight class.
In fact, Rubets smashed the previous record by 13.5 kilograms (30 pounds), which was set by fellow Ukrainian Semenenko Dmytro in November last year, and this would even be a world record in the 120kg weight class as well, where the current world standard is set at 430 kilograms. Take a look at the awe-inspiring lift below, and be glad you aren’t this guy’s quads right now.
Sometimes, world records (like Hesthammer’s squat) look surprisingly smooth and easy. Rubets had to really fight for this one, and it’s all the more fascinating (and nerve-wracking) to watch.
Rubets weighed in at 100.1 kilograms for this meet, meaning he squatted well over four times his own bodyweight — 4.346 times his bodyweight to be exact. That’s on par with some of the greatest squats of all time, and it brings to mind Chen Wei-Ling squatting 4.5 times her bodyweight this past November, which was a world record.
Rubets is actually used to breaking junior and open world records in one heavy squat, having done so last September when he squatted 416 kilograms (915.2 pounds) at the IPF Sub-Junior and Junior World Championships in Poland.
This year, the athlete totaled 1,051 kilograms at this meet, managing to bench 265kg (584.2lb) and deadlift 355kg (782.6lb), easily winning his weight category by 86 kilograms. His squat was the heaviest completed by any athlete at the European Equipped Powerlifting Championships in any weight class — 120+kg athlete Andrii Shevchenko (also Ukrainian) came closest with a 400kg (881.8lb) squat.
Just so we’re clear, this is a junior athlete — he’s 21 years old — setting a world record for all age groups. We can’t wait to see what’s next for the young athlete.
Featured image via European Powerlifting Federation on Facebook.
