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The GSU Scottish Open on Saturday 8th of February kicked of the 2014 GSU competition season with the biggest kettlebell competition yet to hit the shores of the UK!

Over 120 competing athletes from 9 countries (Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, England, Germany, Russia, Poland, USA and Wales). With 6 platforms of lifters over 39 flights in the one day it was a busy day for all involved and couldn’t have ran to schedule the way it did without the help of all the judges, sponsors, technical adviser Morgan, club members and the athletes themselves. So a huge thanks to all involved for your help, support, and participation!

The competition saw some great performances with the World renowned Sergey Rudnev doing 115 jerks and 166 snatches in 28kg biathlon; Scottish Kettlebell Club’s own junior Meghan with 103 reps 16kg long cycle at age 14 and only a five months into starting kettlebells; the amazingly strong junior team from Kilkenny in Ireland showing great performances in both biathlon and long cycle, including Joshua Hayes with 101 jerk and 151 snatch in 24kg biathlon; a new World Record set by Abi Johnston of 152 reps in female 24kg jerk and also many more athletes achieving personal bests, with the experienced competitors all showing great improvements and the numerous new competitors standing shoulder to shoulder with them with great numbers for their first competition!

Scottish Open 2014 Results: Click Here

Scottish Open Event Page

Scottish Open Photos

Some other important developments at this competition, and going forward to all GSU competitions included:

 development and use of the style of electronic counting system used in International competitions. This shows the time and rep count at each platform with the time being centrally controlled and synced between displays. We just have to now get some stands built to house the double displays and electronics and it will be a complete travelling system

first time in the UK a competition has taken place using the new style Wolverson competition standard kettlebells. These bells have been manufactured to higher specifications, finish and tolerences than any other bell available in the UK and have the same handle shape as the bells that are now used at all major IUKL competitions (including IUKL World and European Championships).

With these developments GSU is moving towards ensuring our domestic competitions are run to consistent standards and to emulate, as far as possible, the International standards. This means that athletes intending to represent their countries and compete on a World stage get no better preparation than in the domestic GSU competitions!

The sport is definitely going from strength to strength, growing in terms of participants, results, standards and also showing the supportive and friendly nature of the kettlebell community within the UK and beyond!

Already looking forward to the next GSU competition: The English Open Championships in Manchester 26th April!

24kg snatch 10min – 173 reps, more than most adults in the UK and Ireland!!

Although kettlebell sport is still fairly young here its future is very bright going by the standard of juniors coming through!