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Guelph powerlifter breaks some significant national records

In this week's edition of Following Up, we check in on the powerlifting career of Kafui Hotsonyame, who is hoping to qualify for next year's world powerlifting championships
Mark Pare
Mark Pare

A Guelph powerlifter has made a big splash towards qualifying for a world championship competition next year.

Kafui Hotsonyame set records at the North American Powerlifting Championships in the Cayman Islands last week, taking home multiple gold medals in the men's classic open in the 83 kilogram weight class.

This included becoming the first Canadian lifter in his weight class to surpass the 800 kilogram threshold.

"It was such a good feeling," he told GuelphToday. "Honestly, the last four months of prep went to obtaining that total and actually doing it. I was kind of speechless, and just overwhelmed with emotion in actually hitting it."

He went a perfect nine-for-nine, topping out the squat at 285.5 kilograms (630 lbs), hitting 175 kilograms (385 lbs) on the bench press and reaching 340 kilograms (750 lbs) on the deadlift. He was the gold medallist in all three disciplines.

Hotsonyame said the prep went well, overall, and felt good going into the competition.

But there was a minor snag he had to overcome ahead of time, after sustaining a shoulder injury two months before.

"I was able to rehab it with my physio," he said. "And then me and my coach made adaptations so I can still do modified versions of bench press while I got better."

On top of breaking the Canadian 83kg national total record, the 340 kilogram deadlift broke his own Commonwealth Powerlifting Federation record, beating the previous mark of 325 kilograms set last June in South Africa.

The 29-year-old continues to add to his list of accolades, which includes national titles and briefly holding the world deadlift record in his weight class in 2019.

There's been some internal competition to reach the 800 kilogram milestone among his fellow 83 kilogram teammates Nick Manders and Adam Jansson.

But while he's glad to accomplish the feat first, he said he was more "tunnel visioned" to reach a score to qualify for the 2024 IPF world classic open powerlifting championships in Lithuania next June.

Hotsonyame is in the pole position to qualify with his 800.5 kilogram score.

Now the waiting game begins. The Canadian with the highest international total as of the 2023 calendar year automatically gets a spot at the worlds.

"There's still, I think, one or two more chances potentially for a lifter to eclipse my total," Hotsonyame said. 

"I'm just waiting to see if I need to sit on that total or do another competition."