RENO — As his partner, Irene Dreith, and son, Slate Fragoso, watched, Chuy Fragoso was looking down at a world championship on Oct. 17.
At the International Powerlifting Federation Masters World Championships, Fragoso had gone back and forth through the squat, bench and deadlift events with a French lifter, Karim Houas. After Houas lifted 573.2 pounds in his final deadlift, Fragoso knew all he needed to do was match his final score to win a world title on weight.
“There’s a saying in powerlifting that you can get a personal best 364 days out of the year, but you only have one day out of the year where you can become a world champ,” Fragoso said. “It’s like put the ego aside, forget about that big personal best deadlift or whatever. Do what you need to do for the win, and that’s what we did.”
With his belt high on his sternum due to a rib injury suffered prior to the event, Fragoso grabbed the bar and pulled it up just above his knees. As the bar dropped, Fragoso, a Sandpoint local, was the world champion.
“It’s kind of surreal,” Fragoso said. “I was doing the math. We are at exactly 160 weeks from when I was on my platform, broken from that accident, and 160 weeks later, I went from that to being a world champ.”
Just over three years ago, Fragoso broke the neck on his femur and had to endure his third hip replacement because of it. The injury has served as a moment of motivation for the 53-year-old as he battled to reach back-to-back world championships in 2025 and 2026.
While he claimed second place last year, he said he went into this year’s event with the expectation of bringing a championship back to Sandpoint. That mission didn’t change when he suffered the rib injury a week before the competition, only his mantra did.
“The mentality going in was like, ‘it’s not over,'” Fragoso said. “The mantra quickly became ‘PITGIF,’ which is ‘Pain is temporary, glory is forever,’ and I wrote that on my shoes. I don’t recall looking at my shoes when I was deadlifting, but if I looked down at the bar, that would be in sight.”
Houas and Fragoso traded the lead in their weight class throughout the day, finishing the squat event tied and Houas taking a narrow lead into the deadlift following a strong bench event. Fragoso was confident in his deadlift and was able to secure the win by tying Houas’ total, because he weighed in around eight pounds lighter prior to the competition.
Despite winning the championship, Fragoso said he isn’t quite ready to announce his retirement. He said after he returned to his home gym, his partner had replaced a part of his whiteboard counting down to the 2026 World Championships.
“There’s another board that says weeks out, like how many weeks out to the competition. It says 52, so one more year, and then on another board it has 362 days,” Fragoso said. “You come home to like, ‘Okay, yeah, there’s still work to do.’ I guess I’m not going to announce my retirement then.”
