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One of my powerlifting inspirations

Spritcha

Spritcha

New member
As far as inspiration goes, for me the biggest inspiration came from a lifter I met when I was young and who trained under the same coach as me.
When I was young I played rugby with Derek's bro Wayne. I started weight training at 17 under their original coach Joe Fau. To me Derek was the benchmark. He is an awesome guy and just superhuman under the bar. At a time when drugged up guys were dominating he held his own drug free.
Derek Pomana- old school lifter- single ply and life time drugfree.
He was a 110kg IPF lifter from Napier, New Zealand. 3 time world champ.
Worlds results:
1993 he placed 3rd in the 100s.
1994 2nd in 110s (outlifting Ano Turtiainen)
1995 1st in 110s
1996 1st in 110s (again knocking Ano out of the park).
1997 1st in 110s (out squatting Clive Henry)
1998 injured
1999 competed with torn pec- took gold in deadlift with 352.5kg deadlift
2000- 4th (still suffering from pec)
2001- 2nd on bodyweight- totalling the same as winner with heavier bodyweight
2002- 3rd
2003- 2nd
2004- retired injured (torn tricep)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL9mwSCkOGI[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DMN48AEmIY[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugJZi50KR2Q[/ame]
 
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The funny thing about Derek is that he is very modest. I trained alongside him and Wayne for a couple of years and although I knew they did well, I had no idea how good they were. Derek never talked about winning anything. It wasn't until I moved to Oz and told people who I had trained with that I discovered he was a multiple world champ.
In 2005 when I started powerlifting in Oz I was surprised how there seemed to be more division and rivalry here. I tried to promote people sharing ideas a little more- started posting up logs etc on a site I created www.sfwplc.com this site is now closed as its not needed anymore.
One of the first things I did was organise a cross-tasman comp with no qualifying total- where any lifter could get involved and lift alongside legends. The first comp was hosted by Derek's club and ran at his gym in Napier. The comp is called the 'Bledisbro'. It has run every year since, although recently it has become a postal comp. It was amazing watching how generous Derek was with lifters, helping them out, encouraging them, running comps, bbqs, reffing, announcing.
Some insights into Derek, mostly from what I have seen or been told.
He was a monster raw. At his best he was squatting over 320 raw, benching around 240 and deadlifting over 350. He was known to start a sqat session with 200x10 front squat. He used to work out what time difference there was to the place where the worlds was being held- he would then train at the time he would be lifting there- so if that was 2am New Zealand time, thats when he trained.
He would use the worst bench, worst bar, heaviest plates- all so he knew he could handle whatever set up he faced.
 
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Isnt it a shame that in our sport, lifters of this quality are not a household name.

Whats he doing now Steve?
 
His kids are into dirt bikes- so he spends his weekends with them riding bikes.
He had some pretty serious injuries- torn pec, torn tricep- both requiring surgery- then a torn bicep.
There is a video of him at the 2003 worlds squatting 385kg with 1 knee wrap on. The other came undone while he was walking out. Rather than getting it redone he was gave it a go.
He wore very loose equipment and didn't get much from it. His brother Wayne, seen in the squat videos giving him encouragement, was bigger and some say he had greater potential. However, he badly broke his leg in a motorcycle accident.
 
Another great kiwi lifter, who is also a huge inspiration to me, is Reuben Simanu.

Here he is benching 305kg. He is also a pioneer, life time drugfree and a total machine.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5nYioz3WNE"]YouTube - Reuben Simanu 305kg Bench Press[/ame]

Benching 300kg
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yg76j28Z6w[/ame]

Here he attempting 307.5kg.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBcYPqbF1XA"]YouTube - Reuben Simanu 2007 Bench Nats - 307.5kg[/ame]

Reuben is one of my dearest PL friends- a real credit to the sport.
 
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That's some ridiculous weight they're both handling with what looks like, relative ease.

Derek's Squat was deep as and came up smoothly. His Deadlifts looked like warm up's, though I don't understand why he got 2 reds on the 345kg. Anyone?

Reuben's 300kg Bench. I don't really know what to say, it came up so damn quickly.

Fantastic lifters and sound like quality feller's to boot.
 
One of the awesome things about these two is that they stayed clean, did battle with the worlds best, knowing some of them were drug cheats, but just gave it their best.
Rueben is still lifting in NZ, strong as ever, despite a motorcycle accident a couple of years back.
Derek squatted 400 at least once, but stepped after he got the weight up and so got red-lighted.
 
How is Whakatane pronounced steve?

Im reading it a wack-a-tayne...

I know kiwi's have a different take on english :D.
 
faaaaark how close was he to that 307.5kg bench.

When he was fighting it i just wanted him to make it haha, i still had hope even though the vid suggested he didnt make it :D
 
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