Polk Powerlifters Take Junior Olympics by Storm
August 4th, 2009
**Original story found at TheLedger.com**
DES MOINES, IOWA – Team Elite Powerlifting and Fitness of South Lakeland won the AAU national team title Sunday in the Junior Olympics. They brought home 11 gold medals and 10 world records while winning the team trophy for the third time.
By Lisa Coffey
Don’t call Polk County wimpy.
Team Elite of South Lakeland won its third AAU powerlifting national team title Sunday at the Junior Olympics in Des Moines, Iowa.
In addition, Baron Williams of Auburndale set 14 records and won three gold medals at the event.
The Elite team took 11 lifters to the event and came home with 11 gold medals and set 12 AAU world records, four each by siblings Alexandria and Robby Dodds.
The team was in second place going into the deadlifts, the last event.
“We pulled a lot of big deadlifts,” said coach Keith Sundey. “It was pretty close. We had to pull the best we’ve ever done before.”
Sundey, who opened the gym three years ago, said the Nebraska team coach had brought a team to the meet just to beat Elite.
“It was a nice victory,” Sundey said. “The kids said they were going to wear their medals on the plane home. It was well worth the trip since we had to ask sponsors for money for plane tickets, hotel rooms and entry fees. We pulled it out. I can’t complain.”
Even though Elite had won the event two times before, Sundey said it was challenging.
“It was not easy because of the formula,” he said.
Winners are determined by an AAU formula that calculates the weight of the team and the weight lifted.
“We used to just do medal count,” he said.
Six teams competed in the event, for about 70 lifters.
Nine-year-old Alexandria benched 49 pounds while weighing 75.
Elite’s Will Blackwelder, a baseball player at George Jenkins, had the best deadlift of the entire meet at 551 pounds, lifting more than college lifters.
In his first meet, Patrick Behrens earned a gold medal. Cory Brossart pulled his hamstring three weeks ago and managed to deadlift 314 pounds.
Jacob Sundey dropped 11 pounds to make weight and raised his world record total, with several organizations, to 24. He had never deadlifted more than 300 pounds before, but he lifted 303 pounds in Des Moines.
“He has no quit in him,” Keith Sundey said. “He actually missed 303 and got it on his third attempt. A lot of 13-year-olds, that will rattle them.”
ON HIS OWN
Individually, Williams of Auburndale was impressive.
Williams, who is not part of the Elite team, but whose father, Joe, once lifted with Keith Sundey, set 14 records at the event.
Williams lifted weights as part of his competitive baseball and soccer training.
He started to get serious about powerlifting about five months ago in his garage with his father’s encouragement.
“We realized I could break those records,” Williams said. “The only place to break records was here in Iowa.
Williams made his mark.
He set single-lift and full-meet records, raw and unassisted, meaning sometimes he used wraps and supports.
Williams tried to save some strength from Saturday’s single-lift meet for Sunday, and it worked.
He didn’t think he could deadlift 265 pounds.
“When Dad suggested it, I thought he was slightly crazy,” Baron said.
He missed just one lift over the two days.
