@Antti, very interesting!
There are four occurrences of "bona fide" in the USAPL rule book. Three of them refer to international championships and world records.
It's interesting to contemplate the logic behind of these choices, particularly the one in the news article you gave. The article doesn't make it clear, at least to me, whether the single-lift SQ record was in question - it sounds like only the SQ-in-a-3-lift-meet record. What I don't understand is why, since the SQ is the first lift, what comes after it makes any difference to the bona-fide-ness of a SQ record.
OTOH, for the deadlift, which is the final lift, I can see how requiring real attempts on the SQ and BP could make a difference.
Let's have a look in my categories - if you go here:
Lifting Database - and choose
Type: New Jersey State Raw Records
Division: Raw Master 3 (that's 60-69 years old)
Weightclass: IPF - Male - 66 kg
You'll see my record for Deadlift Single Lift. I couldn't tell you _why_ it doesn't also show as Raw Master 3a, since there is a Bench Press Single Lift record in there. I just sent an email to our state chair asking this question.
Back to your point about bona fide attempts - in the real world of the USAPL and IPF, even at the level of state records, while no one is telling me to break the rules and they won't mind, they also generally don't drug test us and we are something of a less important class of powerlifting citizen. I don't say this with any bad feeling - I completely get that the competition is for the open class lifters, and also generally for the equipped lifters because those are where people even outside the sport pay attention, and for the simple reason that those numbers are the biggest numbers. I totally get it.
I say all that because I have explained to you here in a forum message that 60/70/80 present bona fide bench press attempts for me, but you should know that no one is going to raise that question at any USAPL meet. At some point it might get asked - perhaps at the level of a national record, perhaps only at a world record level, but I wouldn't be surprised if was considered a non-issue, even at WR level.
Interestingly, the 3-lift total for Master 3a, Raw, is 332.5 kg. If I were to BP 80, SQ 80, and DL 165 as I hope to do, that gets me to 325 kg total. It's possible I could SQ 90 kg and total 330 kg. Maybe I start going a little heavier on my squats between now and the meet.
Thank you for a good and informative conversation thus far -
@Carl in Dover, anything to add?
-S-