A few weeks ago I participated in a sanctioned meet that was so poorly run that I need to get it off my chest.
The meet was held on a sunday and supposed to be capped at 60 lifters but the director said he let a “few” stragglers sign up after it was full. In all there were a total of 104 lifters. guess I have to look up the definition of “few” again. There were 4 flights with about 25 in each. the lifting was to start at 9:30 but at 9 we were still in the rules meeting and had not had a chance to get our rack heights yet. I was the 4th lifter in the first flight and had about 30 minutes to get my rack heights and then warmup with only one monolift for all of us.
The venue would be ok with 60 or so lifters but the over 100 at this one, there was standing room only and my family couldn’t even get in to see my 1st and 2nd squats. The music was so loud too that they couldn’t even talk without yelling. The announcer was very hard to hear clearly. The pass/fail lights were on the ground leaning against the wall so only a few could see it. we had to walk off the platform and around the weight rack just to see if we passed.
The head judge said they were going to adhere to depth and the 60 second rule but I saw some go well past 1min and get passed while others got told to stop their lift right as the timer ran out. at least with the depth they seemed consistent.
I had a friend that lifted in the fourth flight and was the last lifter. she finished her 3rd deadlift at 11:45 pm. by the time awards were given out, I got back to my room at 1am. Some of my friends had to travel back home afterwards as they had to work the next day. luckily my boss had allowed me to have that monday off.
If they had kept this at 60 it would have been a pretty good meet. This should have been either split into 2 days or had multiple platforms. The group I just started lifting with has been going to his meets for a while, but they have decided they won’t be attending any more in the foreseeable future, as they have been steadily getting worse each time. I for one will NEVER lift in any of these.
Ok, sorry for the rant, but I do feel better