In less than two weeks, the 2018 World Open, Sub-Junior, Junior & Master Classic Bench Press Championships will kick off. This year, the Championships are being held on May 13th-19th in Vantaa, Finland.
At the classic bench press championships, we get to watch the world’s strongest raw bench press athletes come together in an epic showdown. One of the athletes looking to leave his mark in the record books is 25 year old 120kg+ powerlifter Thomas Davis.
Davis, who’s coached by Dan Gibson, has great lifts across the board, but his bench press strength is absolutely insane. Yesterday, Davis shared a video highlighting his planned opener at the Championships, and it’s monstrous. In the video, Davis smokes a 284kg (625 lb) bench, which is currently 1kg over the current IPF classic 120kg+ bench press only world record.
In Davis’ video’s description he writes, “OPENER SET!! Even on a day that I’m not feeling strong, STILL smoked 625 with Commands. Gettin Ready For IPF Classic Bench Worlds in 2 weeks. Fast Or Nahh??” If you asked us, we’d agree with Davis and say that set was fast.
This year, Davis competed at the Arnold Classic in the SSP Nutrition Pro Raw Bench meet. He opened his attempts with 285kg (628 lbs) and crushed it, but unfortunately missed his second and third attempts at 287.5kg (633 lbs). Keep in mind, this meet wasn’t an IPF hosted international meet, so that’s why the 285kg didn’t officially break the record.
Check out one of the 287.5kg (633 lb) benches from below where Davis was called for “heaving”. Whether you agree or not with the call, there’s no denying he moved the weight well and looked comfortable under the bar.
We mentioned it above, but the current IPF 120kg+ classic bench press only world record currently sits at 283kg (623 lbs) and was set by Ilyes Boughalem. He set this record in October 2017 at the African Powerlifting & Bench Press Championships.
Check out Boughalem’s strong 283kg (623 lb) bench press below.
https://youtu.be/XbLc4RBbZos
Judging from the Davis’ latest progress, he may be positioning himself to break the current IPF world record on his opening attempt, which is virtually unheard of. It’s going to be fun watching Davis compete and push the ground for the 120kg+ weight class even further.
Feature image from @tdsmash Instagram page.