The strongest people from across the north of Scotland have gone head-to-head in Aberdeen in the first powerlifting competition in the city for three years.

More than 100 people watched on as 12 Scottish weightlifting records were broken at Scottish Powerlifting’s Aberdeen Open at Results Gym.

Lifters flocked from as far afield as Stornoway and Inverness for the competition, with both men and women aged from their 20s to their 60s competing.

Athletes were pitted against each other in the arches of Aberdeen’s South College Street to produce their best squats, bench presses and dead lifts in front of a riveted crowd.

The mightiest effort came from one of Results’ own, Keith Ross, with a huge deadlift of 280kg.

Adam Rutherford was named the top male on the day with a total best of 672.5kg lifted across all three exercises, including a Scottish Open bench press record of 182.5kg in the 93kg class.

The best female lifter was Tamsin Campbell with a record 385kg total – whilst she also set new Scottish Open records in the 75kg class with a bench press of 82.5kg achieved and a deadlift of 175kg.

Olympic weightlifter Iwona Ottenbreit co-owns Results Gym with her partner, Austen Russell, and said she was delighted at the local talent on show.

“The whole powerlifting community is just growing every year, even in women’s categories there is more, it just shows people want to compete,” she said.

“We weren’t expecting this many spectators. It was a great day for us. We did our powerlifting for the first time last year and that went very well. The interest was huge.

“We never realised there were so many powerlifters just in Aberdeen. We thought it would be a great idea.”

Scottish Powerlifting’s events secretary, David Hammond, said: “There was some amazing lifts. One lifter did 280kg which is basically 280 bags of sugar. It is an enormous amount to lift.

“And Results Gym have produced an incredible number of powerlifters, and are particularly encouraging women to lift.

“You have a lot of lifters from the young through to people in their late-50s taking part, and that is the inspiring thing about powerlifting, it lends itself to competition.

“People can compete against themselves and other people in different classes.”

Results

Three Masters records were broken by Anneli Ritari-Stewart in the over-40s category; whilst Jeff MacDonald of Stornoway took the Scottish Open under-23s bench records for an 140kg attempt in the 93kg wight class.

Aberdeen’s own Joyce Park smashed four Scottish Masters records in the over-50s category with a squat of 115kg, a bench of 75kg, a deadlift of 140kg and overall of 330kg.

Stornoway’s Paul Macdonald came first in the 83kg weight class, followed by Gordon Scott and RGU Weightlifting Club’s Seb Wilson.

Ms Park was first in the 84kg women’s category, followed by Claire Lindsay.

In the 90kg class Adam Rutherford came out on top, followed by Stornoway’s Jeff Macdonald and Aberdeenshire’s Tom Barrack.

In the 105kg class Steve Cumming of the Mastrick weightlifting club was first, followed by Tom Crawford and Aberdeen’s Neil Cushnie.

Drumoak’s Grant Sinclair was first in the 120kg class and Results’ Lewis Thomson first in the 120kg-plus one.

In the ladies 52kg class, first place went to Beata Haratym and in the 57kg category to Anneli Ritari-Stewart.

Eliska Pejskova was first in the 63kg class and Tasmin Campbell in the 72kg class.

Jeff Macdonald performed the biggest squat with 235kg and Adam Rutherford the biggest bench press with 182.5kg.