The Barbell Division

Put these in your calendar and keep an eye out for entries release, we’ve got a lot planned 🔥!

Swipe for the 2nd half of the post!

With a few days left to go before our fundraiser event this Sunday (10am, at The Barbell Division 📍) we thought we’d give you all a more detailed breakdown of what we’re planning on doing throughout the day!

The main things to remember:
- everyone is welcome, no need to be vegan!
- there will be food and drinks ☕️
- there will be cute animals 🐶

If you haven’t got your tickets yet please do so ASAP, it would really help us to know numbers in advance, we can’t wait to see you there!

This is shaping up to be a nice, small event, perfect for those who don’t want the pressure or stress of a big competition, but want to hit some PBs - payment link and waiver link are in our bio, join us!!

Before we delve into the schedule for the Fight For Animal Rights crowdfunder day (14th June, at The Barbell Division) we thought we’d start with a little surprise announcement, we have covering the event as the official photographer 🤩!

Those of you who are involved within the powerlifting world know he’s kind of a big deal and he’s part of the legendary .uk crew 👀!

Here’s what Kameron wants you to know about him:

Favourite bird: pigeon 🐦
I’m a powerlifting, Strongman, Olympic weightlifting, and wildlife photographer!
I’m also a powerlifting athlete, my best bench is 132.5kg, best deadlift is 235kg, we don’t talk about my squat…

On the 14th, I will be photographing speakers, audience members, and whatever people fancy, so if you want to do a little pose here and there that’s fine too!

Kameron has kindly offered to record some of the talks or seminars if any of the speakers would like the footage, so if that’s you, do get in touch with him!!

P.S. he’s also been vegan for the past 8 years 🌱

If the schedule wasn’t enough to convince you, hopefully Kameron’s photography skills might 👏🏻!

Fight For Animals Event 🌱
Location: The Barbell Division, SO18 1DH
Date: 14th June 2026

Our next event is one close to our hearts for various reasons… We are collaborating with the incredible local activism group to raise money for them and allow them to expand their work and events even further, which directly revolve around animal rights, animal liberation, and veganism - all the proceeds will go to them, we are simply providing the opportunity to support them!

As many of you know, a few of the staff members and gym members are vegan or plant-based, but our hope with this event is to truly offer the opportunity for those of you who aren’t but who want to get involved in helping animals to get started!

We wanted to offer a varied schedule to ensure there’s something there for everyone, which is why we have a mixture of educational opportunities surrounding plant-based nutrition, information about activism, lifting (because we’re firm believers that vegans can be strong too 😚!), food, and the opportunity to meet animals who benefitted from humans fighting for their freedom!

Tickets are £10/person and will go straight to - last slide gives all the various ways to get a ticket - we sincerely hope we will see many of you there, so save the date 14th June!

Saving the best for last, our equipped lifters 🔥!

Sophie Newby-Deane (British Equipped Championships 2025 winner) and Juliette Carter, who we believe will be making her equipped debut, will be battling it out in the u63kg class!

Lottie Hall will be running unopposed in the u76kg, and given her incredible competitive history we’re not surprised she scared the competition away! Lottie has been competing equipped since 2022 and has regularly been podiuming at national and international level in the equipped scene; she is also organising this year’s All England with us so go and thank her for the crazy amounts of work she has put into this!

We have another seasoned equipped lifter, Shaunni Clutterbuck, competing in the 84+ - she has won the British Equipped Championships twice in the past two years, among a multitude of other wins 🏆!

Finally, we have Josh Inman competing in the equipped u105kg category; Josh podiumed at last year’s British Equipped Championships and won the British Bench Equipped Championships, making him another brilliant athlete to watch on Sunday!

With that, we have now announced all athletes, and we are in the process of setting for tomorrow, we can’t wait to see you all!

Wrapping up the raw athletes with the u120kg and 120+ 👏🏻

Reigning champion Curtis McLaren is coming back to defend his title and with the space between qualifying totals we’re fairly confident he will do just that! Finn Wood and Alex Stokes are predicted to be sat in second and third spot with another big gap in totals, similar to the gap between third and fourth, so unless anything drastically changes on the day these predictions should be accurate!

The fight for 1st place will be quite close in the 120+ between Aaron Thompson (reigning champion at Englands, and third place at the British Open 2025) and Josh Pearson (2024 British Juniors podium), with George Nash sitting comfortably in 3rd place and Sam Burgess most likely following in 4th place given the total difference!

U84 and 84+ breakdown below! 👏🏻

The u84kg podium will most likely be according to qualifying totals, unless any mistakes happen on the day, given the slightly bigger gaps between totals; Hollie Tobun is likely to reach first place considering her podium finish at the British Open last year and her win at All Englands 2025, closely followed by Sian Arterton, taking into account her strong bench (2nd place at British bench this year) and her podium spot at Englands last year. Third place will most likely go to Erykah Boaten, another strong bench presser (1st place at British bench!)! Honourable mention to Beth Thomas who has got a very similar total to Erykah and depending on how the day goes she could easily sneak into podium 👏🏻

The 84+ class is shaping up to be quite interesting too, where we can see Dominique leading with a considerably bigger total, followed by Karmen; the fight over third place will likely be the closest one given Annalisa and Jennifer’s identical qualifying totals, this one will remain a mystery until we get to final deadlifts 👀

Lightweight men’s categories coming up next 🔥!!

A ridiculously packed and competitive u74kg class, with Krishan, Abdul, and Daniel predicted to be top 3 according to QT, however the specific order is very much TBC considering some of them have been holding back with the qualifying totals; George Sandoe is also very likely to have a shot at podium given his 2025 Englands win 🏆

Lahiru Suren, British Opens winner 2024, is running unopposed in the u59kg class 👏🏻!

Finally, we have Sirjan Rana and Hari Swaminathan in the u66kg, predicted to be 1st and 2nd respectively based on QT!