MOBILE, Alabama — The ARC-Baldwin County Powerlifters powered up to host the USAPL Alabama State Powerlifting Championship in conjunction with Special Olympics Friday and Saturday at Fort Whiting in Mobile.

The state meet serves as a fundraiser for the Baldwin County Special Olympics and the team is donating part of the proceeds to the Wounded Warrior Project. Many of the team members also competed in the open divisions along with top-raked athletes at the state and national levels.

Team ARC-Baldwin County head coach and meet director Daryl Haskew of Fairhope said the event went well.

”Each one of the (ARC) lifters performed enough lifts deemed correct by the judges to receive a medal in the Special Olympics Division. Five lifters: Tony Madaris, Michael Cline, Allen Hall, James Lemon, and Bea Smith joined the USAPL and were scored in both Special Olympics and the division that they entered Bench Press only (in their age category). Two of the lifters performed bench press lifts which qualified them as State Records in the Bench Press—James Lemon and Bea Smith (Age 50 – 59). We had lifters representing eight states.”

Other Baldwin County lifters set new Alabama Records. These records must be confirmed by the State Records Chair, Tim Womack. James (Jamie) Flowers of Fairhope, in the Masters Division 40-49 (242 weight class) Squat – 455, Bench Press – 365, Dead Lift, 435 for a total of 1255 (4 State Records) and Jay Todia of Fairhope in the Masters Division 40-49 (181 weight class) Squat – 285, Bench Press – 225, Dead Lift – 385,Total 895 (4 State Records).

Also competing in their first meet, “Team Silverhill”, also known as Alanna Blount and Tervelle Lee represented the Silverhill Police Department to help raise money for the Special Olympics.

Blount did not complete all of her lift attempts to the satisfaction of the judges at the bench press or the Push/Pull event. But did make a 200-pound dead lift.

A Silverhill police officer, Lee entered the Open Mens division in the 165 weight class. He performed a 300 squat, 325 bench press, and 315 dead lift.

“Impressive, but not quite enough to earn a medal,” Haskew said. “The 165 open is probably the most competitive division. He did extremely well for his first meet as did Alanna.”

Haskew added that the rules are strictly followed for everyone.

“There is more to powerlifting than just walking up and picking up stuff. There are rules and more rules. In the USAPL, there are 58 pages of rules. In order to run a sanctioned USAPL event, one must ad-hear to these rules or the results cannot count, thus the necessity to apply for a sanction. This event had a double sanction: USAPL and Special Olympics Alabama. All of our ARC lifters who lifted on Friday were doing so under the combined sanction. All were lifting as Special Olympics Athletes only.

“On Saturday, because the squat was being contested in addition to the other two lifts, some of the Special Olympics Athletes joined the USAPL membership and competed as both Special Olympics and USAPL lifters. This is how our ARC athletes were able to get into the records book.”

Other ARC-Baldwin County athletes taking awards were, in the female division, Martha Stewart (250 pounds lifted), Tamara Ranger (235) and Laura Cardell (200).

In the male division David Hall (390) took first, Adam Bell (235) second and Matthew Rabinet (210) third in the 148-165 Class. Also, Paul Parker (210) was second and Bak Nickles (145) third in 181-191 Class and Rashad Henry (390) of ARC-Baldwin County third in the 275-plus group.

Haskew also competed in the 60-69 age group and set a state record with lifts in the Squat 300, Bench 220 and Dead Lift 320 for a total of 840.

Seven U.S. records and 56 state marks were set at the USA Powerlifting-sanctioned meet on Saturday pending certification.