Julian Sykes, the St. Cloud senior who won a pair of gold medals at last month’s FHSAA Class 3A state boys weightifting championships in the 154-pound class, has been named recipient of the 2022 Florida Dairy Farmers “Mr. Weightlifter” award.
The Florida Dairy Farmers select the top athletes and coaches of the year in each of the 32 boys and girls sports officially recognized by the FHSAA. It was the third time in the school’s history that a weightlifter from St. Cloud High School has been honored as the sport’s overall athlete of the year, as Sykes joins David Stamper (1997) and Josh Piasecki (2017) as former Bulldog winners.
“Way cool achievement not only for Julian, but for Coach Cory Aun and our entire program,” St. Cloud Athletics Director Bryan Smart said. “The Florida Dairy Farmers Mr. and Miss Awards are the top honor an athlete can receive in this state and to have our third recipient in this sport is a great achievement.”
“Julian Sykes was selected over for this award over every lifter in the state, regardless of weight class and school classification. This is the highest honor for a Florida high school lifter,” Aun said. “Select coaches from all over the state voted from a pool of dozens of state champions and Julian was the near consensus as the top athlete. It should also be noted that he just won the Florida Olympic Weightlifting State title last Saturday and he will compete for a national title in Las Vegas in late June.”
Sykes, who finished in third in the traditional competition last year, came back to dominate his senior season – going undefeated and winning both the traditional (clean and jerk and bench) and snatch competition at the Orange Belt Conference, district, regional and state competitions.
At the state meet, Sykes essentially won the title on his first attempt in each discipline with successful lifts of 295-275 for a 570-pound total, before extending the lead on second and third attempts with a 315-pound bench press and a 300-pound clean and jerk. His 615 total was 70 pounds more than second place finisher Isaiah Rivers of Flagler Palm Coast (295-250-545) and was a 75-pound improvement off his bronze medalist total of 270-270-540 in the same weight class as a junior.
In the newly created snatch competition, which may eventually replace the bench press to put the high school sport more in line with Olympic competition, Sykes was the only competitor in his weight class to successfully lift 200 pounds and he accomplished that on his first attempt. He would hit 225 on his second attempt to win the competition by 30 pounds over his closest competitor, David Izquierdo of Lyman.
“Julian's unrelenting motivation in the weight room is unrivaled. He is an absolute technician on the lifts, and he rarely misses an attempt in competition,” Aun added. “Out of 99 possible attempts this season, he only missed 6 attempts – which is an unheard-of statistic considering the staggering amounts of weight he lifted.”
The other finalists for the prestigious award included Suwannee’s Ricardo Garcia, who won both the Traditional and Snatch titles in the Class 2A 119-pound division and Keystone Heights’ Ulysses Freed who won both titles in the Class 1A 154-pound division.
Lantz Lowery was selected as the 2022 Boys’ Weightlifting Coach-of-the-Year (COY) after leading Keystone Heights to its second straight Class 1A state title in the Traditional competition and then adding the inaugural Snatch competition title.
Under Lowery, the team had nine top-three finishes, including three champions in the Traditional, with two winners and four other top-three finishes in the Snatch competition. The other coaching finalists included Class 2A COY Dan Marsee of Suwannee and Class 3A COY Duane Hagstrom of Flagler Palm Coast.
This is the 30th year of these unique awards.
