Kettlebell sport is in its infancy in Australia, but with a core group of people working hard to promote it some momentum has been gained and we’re finally seeing some growth.

For those who don’t know, kettlebell sport is a power endurance sport involving long, timed sets of kettlebell ballistics.  Traditionally, it’s 10 min sets of kettlebell jerks, snatches or long cycle clean and jerk.  For men, most competitions involve biathlon (10 mins double jerks followed usually at least 30 mins laster by 10 mins snatches) and long cycle (double bells) events.  For women, there may be snatch only events or biathlon and long cycle events, at this stage all women’s events are carried out with single bells.  In competition sets the bells must not be put down, and for single handed lifts only one hand change is permitted.

On Saturday 27^th March Australia saw its biggest kettlebell sport meet to date: a whopping 7 competitors! Now in many other countries this sounds very, very small, but in Australia, where kettlebell sport has only really been accessible to people for about a eighteen months this was BIG.

The competition was held at Kettlebell Athletica in Melbourne. So big was the lure of the event that a couple of people even came from interstate to attend. One of the biggest problems with kettlebell sport in Australia is that our population is very spread out over a very large land mass, so it’s very difficult to get everyone together for a meet.

Paul Tucker (centre) came from Tasmania and Dave Tabain (right) came from New South Wales for the comp.

Even though we don’t take our kettlebell competitions too seriously at this stage (because we’re such newbies) and the aim of the game is fun and to hopefully get a PB, the competitors (including myself) were pretty nervous beforehand and anxious to get started.

Fellow gireviks hanging out and chatting before the comp.

We are trying to increase the standard of lifing in Australia by having formal judging, and this was the first competition where we tried this out (even handed out a few no counts for illegal reps). So with two platforms and two judges the comp was ready to roll.

Every competitor, without exception, gave it their all and most hit a PB on the platform. The spectators, most of whom had never seen a live kettlebell sport competition, were very quiet during competitors’ sets but gave hearty applause after. I don’t think any of them found it boring – ten minutes goes much faster when you’re watching!

The judges and time keepers.

Simon and Sarah on the platform.

Here are the results:

There were also some strongman demonstrations, some juggling and a kettlebell relay race to finish off the day.

We will continue to strive to improve the quality of kettlebell lifting in Australia and attract more competitors to our meets.

The original post of this article can be found at achyball.com.