A world weightlifting record was broken in Workington – a feat hailed as “absolutely amazing”.

American Chris Otero lifted an incredible 421.5kg in the deadlift event at the Cumbrian Invitational Under-105kg event.

It was a new world’s best in the U105kg deadlift, beating the previous record of 420kg.

Otero’s feat was the highlight of a big strongman show held at CRL, Lillyhall.

Dave Straughton, one of the event’s organisers, said it was a special moment.

“It was absolutely amazing to see a world record get broken, because it's a fairly rare occurrence – and even more amazing seeing it happen in Workington,” he told the News & Star.

“Chris was absolutely overjoyed, and the crowd went absolutely bananas.

“The crowd were really invested in it and really got behind Chris, and all the athletes at the show.

“It was just an amazing moment. It's absolutely unbelievable.”

Otero’s powerful performance was joined by other impressive feats as strongmen from across the United Kingdom and Europe competed.

There was local success too as Workington’s Karl Gorman – twice crowned Cumbria’s Strongest Man – won the stone medley event.

Workington's Karl Gorman beat off international competition to win the stone medley event (Image: Prism Photography)

Latvian Maris Krievelis won the overall event with 50 points, ahead of Josh Lancaster and Otero.

Other disciplines included the log for reps, farmers walk medley and yoke run.

It was the biggest such strongman show yet in west Cumbria with a crowd of about 400 enjoying the action.

Straughton added: “It was an amazing day. It couldn't have gone any better.

“It was my business partner, Adam Rumney’s idea to have a pro 105 show, and I know he's massively proud too.

“Every event was absolutely amazing. Karl Gorman had a great performance in the log. There weren’t many people who got to 150 log, but Karl did. He got a great clean rep with it, absolutely no bother.

“The overall winner, Maris, actually got five reps with the 150 log. And watching how some lads just completely bombed on it, it was amazing that he pumped five reps out with it.

“The personal highlight for me was Karl Gorman winning the stones – to see a local lad win an event at that level, against that type of opposition, was great.

“The standard of everything was so high. The farmers medley was so heavy, the yoke was super heavy…you could see the level of effort that every competitor put in.

“People in the crowd were honestly saying to us that it was the best thing that they'd ever seen. That’s amazing to hear, as a promoter.

“All the athletes were amazed at how great the crowd were here in west Cumbria too. They were very complimentary on how well the show had been run. They were all saying they'd all love to come back, even the guys that travelled from all over Europe, and Chris from America.”

Straughton says the intention is to make things even bigger and better in the future, while other big strongman shows are on the horizon, such as March’s Cumberland Strongman Bash, Cumbria’s Strongest Man in May and King of the Styans at Honister in September, which will see more international competitors heading to the county.