My Rant, love it or hate it…
Can the current state of strength sports be fixed?
Powerlifting long ago suffered from the “Im gonna take my bar and start my own fed” syndrome.
Now we have the huge split of WPO/APF,etc,etc and IPF/USPF,etc,etc.
Now people try to compare lifts when they cant be compared due to gear, weigh-in times, judging standards, and drug testing.
The worst part? We probably wont get to see Gary Frank and Brian Siders square off on the same platform. The best of the USA doesn?t get the chance to square off in truly open, international competition, and “all time record” means fuckall now.
Where does this leave us??? With no true “world champion”.
Also, strongman has now been split into two major Associations: WSM and IFSA.
IFSA has all the real talent like Vasyl Virastyuk, Zydrunas Savickas, Raimonds Bergmanis,Mikhail Koklyaev,
Phil Pfister,and Travis Ortmayer. This produces top quality competition.
WSM has Marius. The rest of the field does not qualify to compete, if IFSA and WSM athletes are together in the same comp. The result is Marius winning almost every event and the competition by 20 points or more, as he competes against WSM’s attempt to capture the American crowd by making the contest largely full of “amateur” American strongmen.
Where does this leave us, the fan? Watching a highly diluted WSM, and wondering exactly what channel IFSA comes on, if you do get that channel.
Also leaves you wondering who would win after watching Marius finish 3rd in WSM 2004 behind Zydrunis and Vasyl,and his 5th or 6th place finish at this years Arnold all behind tough IFSA competition. So here we are, the fan, getting cheated once again.
So what is the one shinning light? The IWC still holds international competition with all the best top athletes against each other. Now, true the judging leaves one confused, when it comes to things like pushouts and such, but this is minor compared to the problems of powerlifting and strongman.
Even bodybuilding has its act together better. Imagine having Ronnie Coleman winning the ?Sandow?of the IFBB and Jay Cutler winning the “Reg Park” trophy in a separate organization. Guess I would have even more to bitch about…
So my question is… Can this be fixed and how??
Although I doubt it ever will…