The 59kg class at Equipped Worlds was an absolute rollercoaster. One of the hot favourites, Franklin Leon of Ecuador, didn’t appear for his first squat and made us worry that he had injured himself in warm up. We were relieved to see him appear for his second squat – apparently he had mis-timed his knee wraps and wasn’t ready in time for his first. He quickly went from zero to hero, taking the squat gold with 280kg. Yi-Chun Lin of Chinese Taipei took silver with 265kg and Christopher Tran of USVI filled out the squat podium, nailing all three squats and finishing up with 250kg. Yi-Chun Lin had an uncharacteristically difficult time on bench, only succeeding with his second. However this was 175kg and good enough for silver, just behind Leon’s 177.5kg. Chen-Ting Wu TPE took the bench bronze when Tran missed his third. At sub-total, Leon was 17.5kg ahead but Lin opened 15kg heavier - it looked easy and battle was engaged. Tran and Wu traded deadlifts right down the line – ultimately Wu...