Second Annual Rumble On The Rio Powerlifting Competition Benefiting Clarion County Special Olympics To Be Held On Saturday, July 19th, Early Registration Deadline For Discounts And T-Shirts, This Thursday (July 3rd); Info OnThat And Meet Particulars In Article

(Combined SOPA Clarion County Releases) The Clarion County Special Olympics team of volunteers is seeking the community’s support to rebuild Clarion’s program.

In the wake of the pandemic, the Clarion County Special Olympics team lost all of their local funding and valuable volunteers. Over the past four years, new volunteers have emerged who have been able to restart basketball and bowling, and just last year, powerlifting was added. However, their recent financial support has come from “can days” at Walmart and support from the northwest region, but this is not sustainable for the local chapter.

For this reason, on July 19th, Clarion County Special Olympics will be hosting the Second Annual Rumble on the Rio Powerlifting fundraiser sponsored by Forell Barbell in Shippenville. The Rumble is a unified meet, with approximately 35 traditional and 10 Special Olympic athletes competing together, but they need participants and sponsorship to make this event a success.

While many people think of the Special Olympics as a national or even international organization, it’s important to know that local volunteers and local support are the heart of the program. With your help, athletes with intellectual disabilities in our county will be given the opportunity to compete in sports amongst their peers in a safe and fair environment, receive health screenings, leadership training, and travel to regional and state competitions. All of this is free of charge to athletes.

All proceeds raised will support Clarion’s team of volunteers to better serve the athletes with appropriate uniforms, updated and adaptive equipment, travel expenses to competitions, healthy meals, and so much more.

Shout out to the current sponsors: exploreClarion.com, Stitzinger Financial Solutions, All American Custom Apparel and Engraving, Braun’s Excavation, Car Mate, and E-Z Dogs.

Spectators are welcome at this event!

By Tanya Brooks-Walker Clarion County SOPA Powerlifting Coach: The Second Annual Rumble on the Rio The Powerlifting Meet will be held on Saturday, July 19th at location at Forell Barbell of Shippenville (adjacent to the Route 66 Rails to Trails, next to O’Neill Quality Foods, in Marianne on Route 322 East of Clarion).

The event benefits Clarion County Special Olympics and is for men and women, ages 14+ of all ability levels! 

Last year we had Special Olympic athletes from Pittsburgh and Clarion participate and they plan to attend this year as well.

The planning committee decided to change it up this year with an IronMan competition that includes the bench and deadlift. Competitors can sign up for both or a single event. Deadline to register is Saturday, July 18th for planning, but we will accept lifters the day of the competition as well.

Deadline for guaranteed shirt size + pre-registration discount is July 3rd, but we will have shirts for purchase the day of event.

If anyone would like to order a t-shirt for this year’s Rumble, please comment below with your size. All t-shirts are $15 and will be available on July 19th, at the event at Forell-Barbell in Shippenville. You can pay upon pick up.

Order deadline is Thursday, July 3rd.

As always spectators are welcome! Clarion County Special Olympics would like to thank our current sponsors for this event: Stitzinger Financial Solutions of Brookville, Braun’s Excavation, Car Mate, The Blue House Media, E-Z Dogs, All American Engraving.

A special thank you to Kelly Forell, owner of Forell Barbell for always supporting Clarion County Special Olympics. 

We are so excited to bring back the Rumble again this year! Last year was a success with around 30 men and women competing from ages 14+ including five Special Olympic Athletes and their coaches from Allegheny County. The majority of competitors were first timers, so need to feel intimidated by this event! Everyone is supportive and ready to hype you up! Our certified judges and emcees were amazing and all are excited to be back at it this year! 

This year our goal is to double the number of competitors with the Ironman competition! All ability levels are welcome!   

Thank you again to Kelly Loreski owner of  Forell-Barbell for her generosity and support of this event!

EVENT OVERVIEW

Event by Tanya Brooks-Walker, Kelly Loreski and 2 others
Forell-Barbell
Duration: 8 hr

EARLY WEIGH-INS + Registration Waivers: Friday 4:00-6:00pm @ Forell Barbell
Day of event: 8:00- 8:45am

EVENT:
Registration: 8:00am
Weigh-ins: 8:15-8:45am
Rules Meeting: 8:55am
Warm-ups Flight 1: 9:15am
Start: 9:30am

PAYMENT INFO:
Due day of event (CASH or CHECK ONLY!)
Checks made payable: Clarion County Special Olympics

NO LATE PAYMENT EXCEPTIONS!!

ALL PARTICIPANTS UNDER 18 MUST HAVE A PARENT PRESENT to SIGN A PERMISSION + LIABILITY WAIVER! NO EXCEPTIONS!!

This is a NON-SANCTIONED event(subject to change) but will follow USA POWERLIFTING RULES & REGULATIONS for COMPETITION ATTIRE & LIFT STANDARDS & ATTEMPTS.

SINGLET OR TIGHT FITTING CLOTHING(example: fitted under armor) REQUIRED TO COMPETE

Ironman: Bench & Deadlift $30
Bench: $20
Deadlift: $20
T-shirt: $20

AGE GROUP DIVISIONS: 14-16; 17-18; 19-35 OPEN; 35+ Submaster
MALE WEIGHT CLASSES: 125-144; 145-164; 165-184; 185-204; 205-224; 225-244; 245-275; & 276+
FEMALE WEIGHT CLASSES:105-124; 125-144; 145-164; 165-184; 185+
Food Vendors: TBA

REGISTRATION LINK:

https://docs.google.com/…/1Qz3Tsfbl5KYTvX0N7Azcv3n…/edit