SEWARD, Neb. – History will be made on Saturday when the Concordia University Powerlifting program hosts a home meet for the first time ever. Head Coach Freddie Myles’ Bulldogs are preparing to welcome athletes and spectators to the Concordia Collegiate Powerlifting Meet, slated to get underway from the PE Center Gym at 9 a.m. CT on Saturday. Concordia will be joined at the competition by athletes from Midland, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Coffeyville Community College (Kan.).
2024 Concordia Collegiate Powerlifting Meet
· Saturday, April 20 | 9 a.m. CT
· PE Center Gym (Concordia campus)
· Live results: https://liftingcast.com/meets/m15xv9dmuebp/results
· Live stream: https://www.facebook.com/events/3711214102426959/
Roughly 25 athletes are expected to compete at Saturday’s meet. Powerlifting tests athletes in squat, bench press and deadlift. The format for Concordia’s meet will feature two flights in each of these lifts with a round-robin rotation of athletes. Each athlete gets three attempts at all three lifts. At the conclusion of the competition, awards will be handed out to the best male competitor and best female competitor, based on a formula that compares athletes across different weight classes. There will not be team scoring. As noted by Myles, the atmosphere for powerlifting is typically an energetic one that includes music playing during lifts and an animated public address announcer. Fans are highly encouraged to attend.
The event will mark the conclusion of the 2023-24 season for Concordia Powerlifting. Myles, assistant coach Chevy Stout and the program’s national qualifiers recently returned from the 2024 USA Powerlifting Collegiate National Championships in the Atlanta area. Most significantly, sophomore Rylee Ladd placed as the national runner up in the women’s 52kg weight class and freshman Will Peterson earned a fifth-place medal in the men’s 140kg weight class. Ladd emerged with a women’s American bench press record with a lift of 92.5kg (204 pounds). From a team perspective, the Bulldogs placed ninth out of 109 teams on the women’s side and 19th out of 110 teams on the men’s side. More details about the national championship competition can be found HERE.
The 2022-23 season marked the first competitive campaign ever for both Concordia Powerlifting and Concordia Weightlifting. Myles was introduced as the program’s first head coach in December of 2021 and spent the remainder of the 2021-22 academic year recruiting and preparing for the inaugural season. The Bulldogs showed immense improvement in 2023-24. The major highlight for weightlifting was the 67kg national title won by sophomore Evan Fukuhara.