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TOUCHLINE
ISSUE 19 | NOV 2014 |
5
stars of the future; we’ve had a fantastic response from
this and we were oversubscribed for our first testing event
in January. A number of the athletes that applied through
Golden Chance competed at the English Championships last
month, with seven achieving top three places in their weight
category, which is a fantastic achievement.
The broad range of competition weight categories means
that you don’t need to be a certain shape or size – women
can compete from 48kg upwards and the men’s competition
can range anywhere from 56kg up to 105kg+.
As with all sports you will get a ‘typical’ age at which athletes
peak, however we’re experiencing a much broader age range
of competitive athletes, so it’s becoming less of a factor; one
of our most talented and promising weightlifters is 16 year
old Rebekah Tiler who became the youngest ever British
Senior Champion last year at the age of just 15. She also
competed at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and just
missed out on a medal, finishing fourth behind athletes that
were all much older than her.
Conversely we saw 35 year old Michaela Breeze come out of
retirement to compete at Glasgow 2014, where she added to
her Commonwealth Games medal tally by winning bronze for
Wales in the women’s 58kg category; the same category that
Zoe Smith won gold in for England.
How do you feel that you can increase the
participation in weightlifting?
This is a real focus for British Weight Lifting and we have
a number of initiatives in place to help boost participation
numbers; we have regional development officers located
across the country, who work closely with schools,
universities and clubs to run training camps and workshops,
encouraging people who have never tried weightlifting
before to engage in the sport in a safe environment under
the supervision of British Weight Lifting coaches.
We also have a comprehensive education programme, which
offers accredited weightlifting coaching courses and this is
proving a very popular channel for engaging with personal
trainers, gym staff and fitness professionals.
Our events strategy also supports this as we run national
events that are more focused on participation rather
than competitiveness; the British Development Cup takes
place annually and ensures that young lifters learn the
key elements of technique before progressing onto lifting
heavier weights. Again this year we have received a record
number of entries.
Our partnership with Help for Heroes also helps us in
boosting para-powerlifting participation, following the launch
of Pathway2Podium, a new initiative aimed at introducing
military personnel to Paralympic sport.
The sport is in a good place at the moment with real
TOUCHLINE
ISSUE 20 | MARCH 5
