Thank you from USA Powerlifting
The 2013 Arnold Sports Festival is in the books. It was an enormously successful venture. Each of our events was well run, with many improvements over prior years. The level of lifting was great and most of our sessions were standing room only. Arnold visited our venue, watched, spoke to the crowd, and guest spotted. He posted his appreciation on his instagram shortly after. The Sports Festival organizing committee is currently going through after-action reports but preliminary feedback is very laudatory.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank those volunteers who made our success possible. USA Powerlifting has the most generous members I have ever worked with. I requested 63 volunteer credentials and not only did everyone work, countless others pitched in to make the competitions a success. Thank you to each of you. I never met many of you prior to this weekend but each of you worked tirelessly all weekend.
Our core staff worked all year to make this event a success and they deserve special mention. Our project manager, as in past years was Priscilla Ribic. She did everything from ordering medals to negotiating media contracts and inviting athletes. Greg Page attended the Committee Chair meetings for the Sports Festival as I was not available, and did an excellent job representing USA Powerlifting. Greg also organized the logistics along with Stephanie Dzurnak. They loaded the equipment from storage, drove it in the truck, supervised unloading and setup, and worked all weekend managing spotter/loaders, working the merchandise booth, and basically, everything. Ron Dues was our Platform Manager, Eric Curry bench hand-off specialist, and Bernie Tatulinski organized the merchandise booth, helped with lunch, carried equipment, and cleaned the venue. IPF Vice President Johnny Graham and his support staff from Ft. Hood, Texas, Lanette Lopez and Monica Sabotka came in to handle athlete registration, paid bills, fielded complaints and freed up essential meet staff to work. Robert Keller served as Technical Secretary, recruiting and supervising officials and working on the overall schedule for all events. He was assisted by Bill Clayton, the North American Powerlifting Federation Technical Secretary. Joe and Cathy Marksteiner were our scoring managers and sat at the computer all day, every day. Niko Hulslander, Curt St. Romaine, and Dan Gaudreau, and Bill Helmich assisted with announcing duties and kept the crowd involved. Jack Marcus served as Doping Control Officer. IPF General Secretary Emanuel Scheiber and IPF Media Officer Sabine Al Zobaidi came in to perform their official duties and ended up moving equipment, serving as expeditors, referees, and presented awards.
I am sure that I am forgetting many who contributed, and for that I apologize and thank you for your assistance. Without all of you, it wouldn’t be possible to host an event of this magnitude and to provide our athletes the best lifting experience in powerlifting.
I would like to thank our generous Presenting Sponsors: General Nutrition Centers (GNC) and Titan Support Systems. Our supporting sponsors included Quest Nutrition, Brown’s Gym, Supreme Sports Performance and Training (SSPT), DeNovo Nutrition, and Next Lifter Software and Lifting Large. An event of this scope, complexity, and cost could not be offered without our sponsors.
Finally, I would like to thank the athletes who participated. Without you, there would be no show. We had 188 athletes from 16 countries and from many of the U.S. States. We had many (many) World Records and National Records from both U.S. lifters and from our international guests.
In closing, this was a collaborative effort between volunteers, officials, and athletes and it was one for the record books. Thank you all and see you next year.
Respectfully,
Lawrence (Larry) J. Maile, Ph.D., President
USA Powerlifting