The Disorganization of USAW

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For years people have lambasted USA Weightlifting for failing to grow the sport or perform well internationally. I’ve publicly defended USAW regarding the performance aspect and have also pointed out how they get a reprieve from growing the sport (CrossFit will take care of that). However, there’s still something that they should be on trial for: how awfully disorganized they are.

Some of us remember how a couple of years ago the online streaming feed did not work for nationals — a big hiccup. And people who were actually present at this year’s Arnold Sport Festival (AKA “The Arny”)[spoiler] Chris and Mike specifically refer to it as “The Arny”. If someone says “The Arnold”, they will ask them, “The what?” over and over until they say, “The Arny”. Then they’ll say, “Oh, the Arny?”[/spoiler] The schedule was changed on Thursday, the night before all of the lifting started. Whether or not they allowed lifters into the Senior National meet after the deadline or they allowed too many lifters is irrelevant, because the result was that several lifters were not privy to this schedule change and missed their weigh-in times and therefore were told that they could not lift. To make matters worse, the sessions did not start and end on time and the 94-A group ended after midnight. Then the 105-A session started at 8:00 AM the next morning. For people like me who wanted to watch both sessions, we barely got any sleep and it ruined our Saturday schedule at The Arny. To be clear: USAW ruined my Saturday at The Arny because of their disorganization.

I wasn’t present at the American Open this past weekend, yet I hear the venue was good and things were relatively organized. There were only a couple sessions that ran long and only a few weird things (like how there was only four lifters in the 94-A session). Yet, they had a scheduling problem again.

On Sunday morning I logged onto the official USAW American Open page to download the “tentative lifting schedule” and the “tentative start list”. The times on each list were available the day of the meet, yet they were different. This caused a friend of mine to miss his weigh-in and therefore not lift. He was told he should have checked the night before. Sorry USAW, the customer is always right. For a guy who works a full time job and is spending his hard earned money to attend your meet — that he’s giving you money to participate in — he shouldn’t have to double and triple check your mistakes. And even if he had seen the discrepancy in the ‘start list’ and ‘schedule’, he would have had to show up and say, “Okay, which one of these is correct?” (and some how find the time to do this since his flight got in late on the night he was supposed to check USAW’s accuracy).

In good, worthy companies the customer is always right. REI allows 100% refunds, no questions asked. Wal-Mart is a juggernaut and can afford to accept stupid refunds. Small business know that they need to treat their customers well in order to continue receiving business. Why should USAW be any different?

In the last year there have been more than one national meet that has had this scheduling issue. What the hell is the problem? Is the entry form deadline not adhered to? Are more lifters accepted than the venue can allow? Are more lifters accepted than the schedule can allow? Why can’t the schedule be set two weeks before the event? I realize that it’s in the ‘rules’ that the schedule can change the night before it starts, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay. Why? Because there are people paying hundreds dollars to travel to these national meets and they are told that they aren’t allowed to lift because USAW is incompetent. I’ll again point out that this has happened to more than one person this year — and it’s happening because USAW is disorganized.

If the lifters simply missed their weigh-in, then that’d be their fault. But the reason they are missing the times are because USAW is posting the wrong times, and even doing so on the day of the meet. This isn’t just bothering me because a friend of mine was screwed out of not lifting — and was denied lifting as an extra in another session — or because I had a crappy weekend at The Arny. It’s because 70’s Big receives over 100,000 unique readers a month. Through this website I’ve personally sent at least hundreds of people into USAW, and then USAW consistently shows disorganization in how they conduct their operations. Why would I want to send people to use an organization that consistently fails? And you know what? USA Powerlifting doesn’t have these problems!

In fact, at The Arny USAPL’s platforms and stage were set up and looking very professional the night before the meet began. Meanwhile USAW was scrounging around throwing their stage in place late into the night before The Arny kicked off. And don’t get me started on poor judging in the USAW. Not only was it abysmal at Nationals (to include a judge who was at least 130 years old), but I also heard it was poor this last weekend. But these are grumblings the regular USAW members deal with. They see it as normal and not something that will change.

Horse pucky. Just because an organization is consistently bad doesn’t mean we should be okay with it. I’ve seen fraternities with better organizational skills. USAW should, at the very least, refund the meet entry fee for people who miss weigh-ins on the account of USAW’s failings. In actuality, I think they should also refund travel expenses, but that won’t happen since they can’t even acknowledge that the fault is theirs (or return my call).

All I know is that I’ll be hesitant to recommend new lifters to join the USAW until I see that they show better organization.

47 thoughts on “The Disorganization of USAW”

  2. I know the big problem in powerlifting is the overload of federations.

    But I still think it would be a good idea for just one other federation to exist in the USA as an alternative to the USAW. Don’t try to make it the the official IOC recognized organization of our country. Don’t bother with drug tests. Have Cash Prizes. Be flexible enough within the organization to hold meets that aren’t the standard WL Biathlon. It could hold an old school meet with the Clean & Press. It could have an Overhead Anyhow & Deadlift meet (just like the sugden classic).

    But mainly it would just exist as an alternative. Something that, by its existence, would pressure the USAW to improve, giving the USAW an incentive to have stuff like functioning, useable website.

    • Totally fucking agree. I was at those same sessions at the Arny this year, and FUCK we were tired as shit! Hell, my coach HAD to be at both sessions because he had to judge one and be a juror or whatever that extra panel is on the other one. Terrible fucking planning.

    • There’s the US All-Round Weightlifting Association but I’ve never seen/participated in any of their events. It seems more of an old school lift competition but they do include snatch and clean and jerk out of their like 30 different lifts. I think competitions only have like 5 lifts or so.

      http://www.usawa.com

  3. I dont agree. Brent should have known when he was lifting. I checked the tentative lifting schedule earlier because I was interested in seeing when Brent was gonna lift and because a friend and gym mate of mine was lifting in that session too. My friend had a perfectly fine time finding the location and time of his lift and weigh in. I even found out about it a few days before and posted it on my gym’s facebook group as did my coach and others. Sorry bro but its a little off to get butt hurt about this stuff. Btw, I am not blasting brent and was actually pissed that I missed seeing his lifting I just think this anger is misguided.

  4. Also I do agree with the judging though. Its funny that usawl bros appear to be making up for the relative weakness of our lifters internationally by holding them to absurdly shitty standards of rules.

  5. I know a lot of people will disagree with this, and this is a little off topic but I think it’s relevant..and I’ma letchu finish… but the way weight lifting is presented is fucking BORING. Absolutely boring!!!

    I am a person who really enjoys lifting weights, enjoys watching others lift weights, and really admires strong people, and I cannot stand to watch more than 20 minutes or so of weight lifting.

    And I’m not just talking about the shitty camera angles on the streams, lack of scoreboards, incomprehensible announcing, using kilograms without listing pounds next to it (this is the USA, right?). It is simply unwatchable to someone new to weight lifting, hence one of the many reasons why just about everyone on earth is “new to weight lifting.” There are a lot of small things that could be done to make quick improvements. This is a problem that fringe sports always have.

    Ever watched a football game from the 1950s? Kind of boring, right? There is only one camera angle. It’s kind of blurry. Player stats are rarely mentioned. The announcer does little more than state the yardage, down and distance. Occassionally the overall score is mentioned. There is a lot of silent down time between plays. Sound familiar?

    Then compare that to a game once things got a little more developed in the 70s. By that time you’ve got a scoreboard on screen so that you can understand the meaning of each play. The announcer talks about things other than the game’s metrics between plays. You find out a little about the players, about the strategy. And on and on to today’s modern broadcasts (let’s forget about Dennis Miller for a moment). Basically it takes a sport, comprised of physical contests, and makes it into entertainment. Boom. The sport’s popularity explodes. The same thing happened with the NBA and NHL.

    Until that happens no one is ever going to want to watch it. And because of that, most top athletes–and decent athletes who don’t dream of making careers in sports so big money isn’t a factor–will never be interested in it.

    • Yeah, I was pretty bored watching the Open’s live feed. A lot of that was just because of the poor announcing; I enjoy watching the EuroSport recordings Frank Rothwell puts up on YouTube, as those commentators have been doing it for over a decade and know how to comment a meet.

      The lifter’s coaches were doing a pretty poor job of being organized (or something) though, it was stupid how many times the weight would be raised the mandatory 1 kg because they hadn’t specified their next attempts, and then the weight would have to be changed again once they finally got around to posting their next attempt. (I understand the rational of wanting to see how one attempt goes before deciding on your next attempt, but, seriously, you’ve qualified for a national meet. Barring a missed attempt, you should be able to plan this out a bit better…) All around, I was unimpressed by everything but the actual lifting. I wanna qualify for the AO someday…

      • Bro, I don’t think this is a result of the coaches being disorganized but either getting more time for the lifter or gauging how the lifter feels. Mandatory 1kg raises are not uncommon in competition.

    • There are both agreeable and disagreeable statements here. I do think watching the live feeds over the net is ridiculously boring. However, actually going to the meet and lifting, or watching others lift is a friggin blast. Every meet i’ve been to whether I lifted or not, I was physically exhausted because you can relate to the lifters during competition. Even more so when you have a friend or family member lifting. If they don’t get the weight, you are just as devastated as they are.

      In the end though, the way these “professional” meets are held can be disappointing at times.

    • Is the weights in kilos thing a real issue? You might live in ‘Murrica, but America lives in the world, and the world uses the metric system. If it’s a sport that originated in the US like gridiron football or collegiate wrestling, then yes, keep measurements in imperial. If it’s a sport from outside the US, suck it up and deal with it.

      • @f4tal Most definitely.

        @adamfromjapan I can multiply 2.2 by X to have a mental “feel” for the weight handled; however, not listing weights as “100kg/220lb.” creates a needless barrier for a lot of people. Let’s face it, a lot of people in the U.S. don’t know how much a kg weighs.

  6. Went to look up results and had to go to the schedule, that is wrong, and then shuffle through all the sessions to find the results I wanted. The OFFICIAL results should be published 1 hour after the session ends, and posted in an orderly fashion. Every other sports federation can pull it off, why not the F**ng USA? Lame.

  7. As a member of USAW, I completely understand the irritation. I even feel like my local meets are poorly run sometimes. There actually is something you (we, I guess) can do about it. You can run to be on the board or a committee… Until someone else starts up their own federation, this is the only option.

  9. I don’t have a frame of reference with this, as I plan to compete in Powerlifting, not Weightlifting, but this is a major issue. I have seen massive disorganization in Volleyball Canada where I am a National official, but over the years it is being rectified very well.

    I have to say, it’s no wonder that the US isn’t doing well at all in Weightlifting. If USAW takes such a lackadaisical approach to organizing, promoting and educating people about the sport, then there will be no positive results that come as a result of said attitude. I can tell you that USA Volleyball has many members from what I know and they always do a great job of organizing events, especially the Junior Olympics which is the grandaddy of them all for age-division players. If USAW is to take a step in the right direction, they need to consult other amateur sport governing bodies and figure out their logistics. Performance can be excused, but apathy and disorganization are unacceptable.

    • I understand some of the frustration, and I agree that things can always be improved. And, yes, the lack of publishing the schedule changes after the technical meeting is something I have tried to get fixed for a couple of years now, just because there are ALWAYS one or two new lifters or coaches that do not realize that you really do NEED to be at the technical meeting.

      But, I think most of us that attended the meet found it to be overall, very well organized and very smoothly run.

  10. This was a problem for more than one person. My lifter also almost missed weigh in. We just happened to show up early enough that it was not a problem. We arrived in Palm Springs on Wednesday. We were at the convention center on Thursday prior to the technical meeting and had been there for a while. We decided not to stay for the technical meeting because we knew some people who would be there, and we figured we would go back after dinner and check the schedule when the meeting was over. We went back to the conference center at 9:30 PM, and everything was locked up and nothing was posted. We also went over to the hotel and checked at the front desk. Nothing posted. We went online, and the same tentative schedules were posted. We were under the impression from the tentative schedule that she was weighing in at noon and lifting at 2:00 pm. So, we got a text message from someone whose coach was at the technical meeting, and she said that there were no changes to the tentative schedule. Great. We thought we were good. We went out of our way to verify everything. Drove to the damn convention center at 9:30 PM, went to the hotel, and checked with someone who was actually at the meeting. Well, we did not realize that when she said there were no changes to the tentative schedule, she was looking at one tentative schedule and we were looking at another. Both schedules were posted on the USAW site. Fortunately, we showed up on Friday a little after 10:00 thinking that we would get our credentials and then head to breakfast after she checked her weight. When we got there, we saw a friend who said that my lifter’s name had just been called for weigh-in. What the fuck? As we were standing there, one guy came up who apparently thought that his weigh in was at 10:00 and it turned out that he had missed weigh-in. And at least one girl in my weight class said the same thing. Lots of people were looking at the tentative schedule that was completely different from the one that the final schedule was based off. The final schedule was not posted online until much later. And the paper copy was not available until Friday morning at the convention center. This makes no sense to me. There is no reason that the final schedule shouldn’t be posted online immediately after the technical meeting.

    On a positive note, the rest of the meet was very well run. Nick Frasca and his crew did a fabulous job, and the venue was great. My lifter and I both totaled at our first national meet. Yay.

      • The scheduling was actually quite good. Lifting started on time every morning, the meet ran on time or very close to it all weekend, and the last sessions got over at a reasonable time. Nick did a very good job keeping things running smoothly for a first time national meet director.

        Even the ever present problem of new coaches or lifters not knowing that they had to attend the technical meeting was mitigated a little by the fact that Nick brought a whole bunch (50? 100? not sure but it was plenty) of copies of the updated and final schedule to the meeting, enough for everyone to take 1 or 2 copies, and pass them along to friends who were not able to attend the meeting. I took 3 copies because I knew a couple of people who were not able to attend and wanted copies to give them..

  12. Shit sucks. That’s why I got out of the sport. The whole sport is unorganized. Even in local meets I would clean at 9:00am then snatch at like 3:00pm.

    • I have been to literally hunrdreds of weightlifting meets in the past 20 years, Probably 30 to 40 national competitions all the way from schoolage nationals to senior nationals, and local meets from very small to quite large, and I have NEVER seen the situation where a person started cleans 6 hours after they started snatches.

      It would seem that if the rules of competition were followed, this would be impossible. Nevertheless, I believe you that it happened. But given my experiences, I dont think its prevelant.

      Usually the “bad stuff” that I have seen at local meets is the meet running way late, just like at some powerlifting meets. What normally happens is that way more people sign up for the meet than the meet director planned for, or there are problems like an inability to find good loaders, or judges, etc.

      I have seen both local powerlifting meets and local weightlifting meets run to the early morning hours, with deadlifts or clean and jerks starting after midnight for the last session. I have seen powerlifters squat, then pack up and leave before bench press because it was after midnight and they still had to drive 2-3 hours to get home, and had to show up for work in the morning.

      Of course, there are also a lot of very well run local meets in both sports. It all comes down to who the local meet director is, and how much the local lifting community gets behind the meet and volunteers for jobs like loading and judging.

      After all that, I will agree that we could do a better job making sure meets are run on time, and are conducted in a way that is friendly to beginners. It hurts the sport to not do this. In a sport that needs numbers, we cant afford to alienate new lifters with poorly run meets.

  14. First of all, I thought the American Open was a good meet. It was on time, or very close, the whole weekend. The venue was great. The hotel was great. The Crossfit competition run next door was fun to watch.

    But, this problem of not getting the changes at the technical meeting published persists. I have written about it before. I have talked to members of the board, the Ex Director, various meet directors, etc… and yet the same problem appears again at every national meet. Changes are made at the technical meeting. And those of us who know from experience that you HAVE to attend the technical meeting to be assured of knowing what is going on are there and know what the changes are.

    But there are always new lifters or new coaches who do not attend the technical meeting and assume the final schedule will be available somewhere, and then they get screwed.

    I have suggested to the right people in the right positions to make it happen that the updated schedule AFTER the technical meeting be emailed to every competitor (you need to give your email when you sign up for the meet), as well as be posted at the competition venue, outside the room of the technical meeting, and in the lobby of the competition motel as well as being updated on the USAW website.

    This has not happened yet. I will continue to try to pressure those in a position to make a difference to deal with this problem but as of now the only real solution is to attend the technical conference.

  15. Too many people sit back and bitch about the way meets are run instead of helping out.

    If you really think things should change try volunteering yourself for the meet. Most of the officials and helpers at meets are volunteers – they aren’t getting paid jack shit.

    Does that make up for last minute changes and screwing around lifters? No. But it does mean that schedules can change last minute because of how many helpers become available/unavailable – just be aware of that when you are getting prepared for a meet.

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