Castillo closes Mexico City 2015 in style

Mexico’s 2014 Worlds bronze medallist Jose Castillo cemented his country’s first place finish in the medals table at the 2015 IPC Powerlifting Open Americas Championships in Mexico City on Wednesday (29 April), by breaking the Americas record twice on the final day of competition.

Castillo added 11kg onto his own previous best from 2013, hauling 221kg in the men’s up to 97kg.

The 30-year-old, who was inspired to take up powerlifting after seeing a documentary about the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games, initially smashed the mark with an opening round lift of 220kg.

Castillo decided to go for broke in the third round, but failed an attempt of 233kg having already secured the win to bring Mexico’s medal total to six golds, one silver and two bronze.

Colombia’s Fabio Torres finished with silver thanks to a 195kg push. A solid performance from Jose Marino (183kg) with three good lifts secured Ecuador’s first medal of the week in bronze.

Brazil’s Joseano Felipe (167.21kg) put in a stunning performance in the combined men’s up to 107kg and over 107kg to complete the competition in Mexico City.

Despite being one of the lightest lifters in the field at nearly 103kg, Felipe managed to beat Venezuela’s Robert Yrigoren into silver with a 157.70kg lift and the heaviest man to take to the platform, teammate Jose Silva. Silva weighed in at 109.25kg but settled for bronze with 150.84kg.

Mexico’s first place finish in the Open medals table is followed by Brazil with four gold, three silver and four bronze and Great Britain, who won two golds and one silver.

One world, seven Americas and three junior world records were set over four days of competition at the Royal Pedregal Hotel.

Full results are available at www.Mexico-City-2015.com.

Next up for lifters is the 2015 IPC Powerlifting Asian Open Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan, from 26-30 July.

The 2015 IPC Powerlifting European Open Championships will then take place between 24-28 November in Eger, Hungary.

All of the regional Championships are qualifiers for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and are complimented by the continuation of the Raise the Bar! Say No to Doping educational campaign.