Bench press is my least favorite lift, because I am not good at it. I do not like to do things that I am not good at, and bench press seems like it should be so easy. You get to lie down! I love lying down! And then all you have to do is lower the bar and push it back up. But it's so, so hard. Once you're lying down, you have to use your arms. The weight is so heavy. It feels almost impossible.
Bench press is the only lift in Paralympic powerlifting. It's an event for athletes with impairments in their lower legs or hips, and to do it, they lay fully flat on the bench. When lifters without lower-body disabilities bench press, they try to use the rest of their body to gain a little more strength. They push their feet into the ground! When the athletes in Paralympics bench press, it is all arms, chest, and back. It's pure. It's amazing.
For the final event of the Paris Paralympic Games, Iran's Ahmad Aminzadeh won gold in the men's over 107-kilogram category by benching 263 kilograms! That's 579 pounds!
There are 10 bodyweight categories in the Paralympics, and each athlete lifts three times to see who can lift the most. Watch these highlights from the last day:
On Sept. 6, world records were broken in all four powerlifting events! That's so sick!
Nigeria's Folashade Oluwafemiayo's performance in particular is a joy to watch. She gets wheeled in as the chants and clapping from the crowd get louder. Her trainer straps her legs down. At this point she had already secured her medal, but they added another kilogram for her attempt to break the world record. The rules of the Paralympics say athletes have a minute after their lift to decide if they want to break their record. They built in a "Fuck it, we ball" policy into the games. How metal is that?
Oluwafemiayo secures her grip on the bar, and for a brief moment she shimmies in place. The bar is lifted above her, weighing in at 368 pounds. She holds it for a second, lowers it, and pushes it back up like it's nothing!
This lift—167 kilograms, in the women's over 86-kilogram category—won her gold and broke the world record. Oluwafemiayo didn't have to go after the record; she could have been happy with the medal alone. She just went for it. That rules so fucking hard.
I regret that I only learned about Paralympic powerlifting after the events had finished, but it has been so fun to watch these athletes break records on YouTube. Am I inspired for my next visit to the gym? Absolutely not! But I cannot wait to see what records these Paralympians will break next.
