The GSU competition year drew to a close last Saturday (12th Nov) with the 2016 British Championship. Superbly hosted by BigKat in Harrogate, this was another competition marked by it’s friendly atmosphere and inclusive nature! We have been seeing the expansion of events requested by GSU members over the last year: doubles for women, junior categories, lighter bells and singles for male beginners and this competition was a showcase for this diversity in the sport.

Many of the newer faces to the kettlebell sport scene are already showing amazing progression, and the juniors already showed great skill in their first ever competition! It’s also great to see more seasoned competitors trying out the challenge of moving up kettlebell weight or trying out different events, along with those using the event as more of a de-load from the International competition season and so maybe trying a lighter weight and different pacing scheme.

With the newly collated UK records we can now track the records broken at each competition and these are listed below, however this shouldn’t take away from the achievement of every lifter taking to the platform whether it’s for the first, or fifty-first time! For full results you can check here: British Championship Results and for a full list of records see here: UK Records

The GSU can’t thank Chris Guyll, Becky Fraser, Dave Moore, Chanelle Mcgill, Nick Johnson and rest of the BigKat Fitness and Martial Arts and OKSE team enough for hosting a very smoothly run, friendly and professional competition. Thanks too to Organisation of Kettlebell Sport England for the use of their timers for the day, to everyone who helped out with judging, moving equipment and to all the sponsors including GSU’s main sponsor Wolverson Fitness.

The Welsh Open was first competition of the year and got things off to a great start! Nearly 70 entrants with many stepping up in kettlebell weight and/or trying new events, as well as a number of people new to the sport taking to the platform for their first time!

The Boat Shed in Cardiff were organised, efficient and hospitable hosts as always, hopefully be back next year! Congratulations go to all lifters on their sets, beginner or experienced lifter stepping on the platform is always an achievement! Thanks also too to everyone else, members and non-members, who helped on the day be it with judging, calculating scores & medals, moving and sorting equipment and kettlebells or even impromptu IT & technical support! And thank you too to our main sponsors Wolverson Fitness for their support!

New Masters of Sport:

A special congratulations to Anna Plumridge of Box Bell Fit Training and to Will Dollar of Brighton Girevoy Sport Club who were awarded their Master of Sports certificates from sets they did at the GSU British Championships and IUKL World Championships respectively. Both Will and Anna achieved their MS ranking in Long cycle last year, notably Reece Armstrong also achieved Master of Sport rank (Biathlon) at the IUKL World Championships and his certificate is waiting for him too! The website will be updated shortly with their rankings and also the remainder of the rankings from last year’s competitions.

In the meantime full results from Cardiff are listed below: