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Meet Recap: Anas Anbar is your 2022 USAPL Raw Nationals 75kg bronze medalist! We had big goals for this meet, with priority number 1 placing top 3, and priority number 2 being if the opportunity was there, go for the win. The 75kg class was insane, and if you didn’t follow along, there were a total of 5 pulls for the win on 3rds and it came down to the very last pull of the flight to decide the final placings. Anas finished the day a perfect 9 for 9, with a 567lb. squat, 424lb. bench press, and a 639lb. deadlift for a 1631lb. total.! And going 9 for 9 was key, because come final pulls we knew we were out of position and a single missed lift on the day likely would have taken away a shot at both of our goals. So on squats we played it pretty conservative and likely Anas had another 2.5-5kg in the tank, but I wouldn’t change that call as we needed to get 3 squats on the board. Bench is Anas’s bread and butter and he was able to secure the biggest bench of the session and line up a great subtotal leading into deadlifts. Then come deadlifts, things started to shape themselves up. On forecasted total to start the day I believe Anas was 35-40kg back of 1st place, but that is where proper attempt selection and strategy comes into play. We saw on deadlifts people starting to miss and the opportunity finally presented itself to pull into first place on his 3rd attempt. With that said though, we knew there was a strong chance that didn’t stick, as there were 4 more competitors after going to have a shot as well. Which comes back around to me saying we were out of position on deadlift. Evaluating the field and who was left to pull, my main goal was to force all 4 of those lifters to execute, knowing likely at least a couple would miss. As well as we had bodyweight advantage on all but 1 lifter, so we knew that would force each lifter to have to beat us by 2.5kg. After 2 misses, Anas was still able to hold onto the lead, but @joe.borestein was able to hit a fantastic pull to tie Anas on total but take the lead on bodyweight. And that was short lived, because then @pizzabloat finished with the final deadlift of the day and pulled into the lead by 2.5kg. It was an amazing session and I was honored to be a part of that, and Anas was able to put together and execute his best meet under pressure in one of the most intense battles I’ve seen!
Division: Open
Weight Class: 75kg
Squat: 568lbs.
Bench: 424lbs.
Deadlift: 639lbs.
Total: 1631lbs.
Coach: Steve
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