The Department of Kinesiology and Health Education would like to congratulate the UT Powerlifting Team on their recent success at the Powerlifting Collegiate Nationals. The meet was held in San Antonio over the weekend of April 7-9, 2017 at the El Tropicano Hotel. The team was very successful, and UT was the only institution to rank in the top five in all four team categories:
- Men’s Raw Team – 5th Place
- Men’s Equipped Team – 2nd Place
- Women’s Raw earned – 3rd Place
- Women’s Equipped – 4th Place
Powerlifting consists of three lifts: squat, bench press, and deadlift. Lifters have three attempts at each lift, and weight totals from their three best lifts are combined. The competition is split between Raw and Equipped categories which indicate whether the lifter is wearing supportive equipment while competing.
Several UT lifters also had top 5 individual rankings from among the 774 lifters in the competition:
Men’s
- Talon Romero – 1st place in 53 kg/116 lb bodyweight class (raw team)
- Charlie Yeng – 1st place in 59 kg/130 lb bodyweight class (raw team)
- Charles Okpoko – 1st place in 66 kg/145 lb bodyweight class (equipped team) – 700 lb squat
- Aaron Pomerantz – 1st place in 83 kg/183 lb bodyweight class (equipped team) – 660 lb bench press
- Michael Davis – 2nd place in 105 kg/231 lb bodyweight class (equipped team)
- Hector Bustillos – 5th place in 59 kg/130 lb bodyweight class (equipped team)
- Brandon Canson – 5th place in 66 kg/145 lb bodyweight class (equipped team)
Women’s
- Ashley Guzman – 1st place in 47 kg/103 lb bodyweight class (equipped team)
- Andie Hernandez – 2nd place in 52 kg/114 lb bodyweight class (equipped team)
- Alyson Galanga – 3rd place in 52 kg/114 lb bodyweight class (equipped team)
- Yessi Altamirano – 2nd place in 52 kg/114 lb bodyweight class (raw team)
- Jay’sun Moore – 5th place in 52 kg/114 lb bodyweight class (raw team)
- Avoree Villegas – 3rd place in 47 kg/103 lb bodyweight class (raw team)
- Thaonhi Cung – 4th place in 47 kg/103 lb bodyweight class (raw team)
The UT Powerlifting Team is coached by Dr. Kim Beckwith, who also teaches courses in training, conditioning, physical culture, and more. If you missed the meet, you can also watch streams of the event.
