2024 Bench Press Competition

By Gus Workman | Posted: Tuesday October 22, 2024

The first iteration of the OBHS bench press competition was held in 2023.

Angus Workman and Ted McFadgen set out to find who was the biggest and strongest member of the brotherhood. It was a raving success with a huge audience. Javara Clark won the competition last year with a 140kg bench, setting the school record.

This year we set out to make it a annual tradition and improve the overall competition. Six lifters stepped up to take on the challenge, this year was the first time for the juniors. Competitors were: Sam Glover Year 9, Cru Holland Year 10, Shaquille Te Maiharoa-Hoet Year 12, James Veituna Year 13, Yusuf Nadgee Year 12, Bradley Escueta Year 13.

Cru Holland and Sam Glover both set the OBHS junior bench record at 80kg.

Overall 3rd place went to James Veituna and Tamati Taylor with 120kg, with 2nd place going to Yusuf Nadgee at 130kg. Obliterating the OBHS overall bench record and winning 1st place at the 2024 Annual Bench Competition was Shaquille Te Maihaora-Hoet with an outstanding 165kg. A 165kg raw bench press at 16 or 17 years old would place him 160th in the world all-time for bench press.

The format is simple. There are several waves of weight each lifter must complete for at least 1 rep. To be considered an official rep, the bar had to have touched the lifters chest, before returning to their start position with locked out elbows. We started wave 1 with 60kg, and followed with 10kg jumps. Each lifter can either pull out whenever they want or compete until they fail. For example our first lifters left in round 4 after failing 90kg. 

We cannot thank Hamiora Bennett from Propel Fitness enough for proving his expertise and equipment to run such an event. 

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