For the past two weeks I’ve spent four-ish hours of most of my days volunteering at the 2018 World Classic Powerlifting Championships!
For those who are unaware, it’s one of the yearly elite powerlifting competitions where countries from all over the world send their best lifters to compete for class titles.
Lucky for me it was hosted in Calgary this year (last year it was in Belarus), and having a lot more free time on my hands these days I jumped on the chance to help out. I’ve also been competing for a few years now and have yet to volunteer at any local competitions, so this was a great way to give back to the sport and learn more about elite level lifting.
What exactly did I do there?!
I signed myself up for the accreditation table (where athletes sign in) and to handle ticket sales – mostly because I am too worried to be a spotter on such heavy weights (a spotter is someone who catches the weight if the athlete fails the lift) and because all the gyms I train at use pounds instead of kilograms, so I was worried about messing up the math and incorrectly loading weight on the bar.
Accreditation was really interesting because I got to meet people from all over the world, and I got to work with the Secretary General of the Canadian Powerlifting Union, which was neat.
Ticket sales was probably more interesting because I got to sit inside the venue and actually watch the competition (whereas the accreditation table was in a hotel across the street from the venue), as well as meet other people like the commentators/MCs and referees.
The Good
There was one really exciting day at the accreditation table where I had to sign in the entire French Masters team and the entire Japanese Masters team.
Everyone on the French team was SO NICE (and I love their accents). At one point after I handed a woman her badge she did the whole kiss-on-each-cheek thing that some European and Latin countries tend to do, then EVERY SINGLE PERSON AFTER HER kissed me as well. Probably a good 15 people. It was overwhelming and very nice. One woman even gave me a hug after the kisses. Oh gosh.
I had a couple guys on the Japanese team point and smile at my tattoo or tell me they like it, which felt great! Having an actual Japanese person comment on my traditional Japanese tattoo is pretty sweet. I also noticed that I immediately reverted to some Japanese mannerisms, such as handing badges out with both hands and bowing after saying thank you. I’m used to doing that when I travel to Japan so it was almost like second nature. I definitely got a few looks from people on the team, but maybe they appreciated it? Or maybe I am weird. I know that I do this kind of thing so much while in Japan that I catch myself bowing to people when I’m back in Canada… oops.
I also got to see SO MANY of my favourite lifters in person – but I was too much of a chicken to say hi or ask for a picture. Internally I was fan-girling, but on the outside I had to be “the girl sitting at that table”. One thing I’ve realized though, is that I am way too tall for this sport. Almost everyone is shorter than me. Even some of the men I’ve seen online are shorter than me – like this one guy who has a semi-decent following on Instagram, I swear I could fit him in my pocket. But in videos he looks much bigger!
Watching the competition itself was also very energizing. The first couple times I watched I found myself getting fired up like I do when I am actually competing. My adrenaline was going, I was getting nervous, and constantly felt like I had to go to the bathroom (competing sounds fun doesn’t it?!). Seeing so many world-class athletes moving insane weights and setting world records was SO INVIGORATING!
The Bad
First off I want to give serious props to the organizers of the event – I imagine it takes so much planning and hard work to get something like this going successfully. It’s also very important to note that many of the people “working” at the event are volunteers.
However, I do think that organizing and communicating with all the volunteers could have gone better. There were a couple times during the first couple days when I had no idea where I should be or what I should be doing because no one was around to tell me what to do. Like one time I showed up at the accreditation table and waiting an hour for anyone else to show up because I had no idea where the laptops were or anything else I needed to sign athletes in. There was also a time I was expected to work a 6 hour shift but was not told beforehand – I actually had to leave early for an appointment and felt really bad about it, had I actually known that I could have worked around it.
All volunteers were told they would get a free meal for every shift worked, but there was maybe 3-4 shifts where I didn’t get food. In the morning shifts this wasn’t too bad because I would just leave and get lunch afterwards, but I did one shift from 5pm-9pm on a Sunday night where I was STARVING the entire time. I ended up spending $25 on very mediocre pasta from the restaurant near the accreditation table.
It’s also apparent that some of the people attending the competition (whether it be athlete, coach, or someone otherwise related to an athlete) didn’t know we were volunteers. I had to deal with a handful of very rude people, but seeing as I am not getting paid and literally nothing can be done about me, I decided to be straight forward and unapologetic with them. People complaining about this thing or that thing, I straight up told them I didn’t know and it is out of my control. I was given so little information about anything by the organizers, but I tried my best. But I did NOT go out of my way to cater to the needs of rude people. It definitely reaffirmed by dislike for the general public.
It was also crazy to see so many people unprepared or just not aware of standard travel things – like people trying to use Euros and American cash everywhere. A quick google search will tell you Canada has its own currency. And people complaining about no wifi at the venue (which was just a building with a bunch of volleyball courts, by the way) – saying things like “I’m from Europe and I can’t use my data here I NEED WIFI GIVE ME WIFI”…. Ooookay bud, maybe you should have looked up your cell phone provider’s travel data plans or looked into a temporary sim card? I have used my phone in Japan and South Africa with no issue because, guess what, I did research beforehand!
Overall
Anyway, overall it was a good experience. But I would not volunteer for as many shifts as I did in the future. Maybe 1-2 shifts and that’s it, because I am FREAKING EXHAUSTED.
Also, I helped clean up after the competition was over which involved loading thousands of pounds of iron plates onto trolleys and unloading them onto pallets to go into the truck…. That was actually this morning. I don’t know how I’m not dead.