Last Saturday the Queensland Weightlifting Team descended on the Cougars Weightlifting Club’s gym at Chandler for their last preparations for this weekend’s Olitek National Senior and Junior Championships in Victoria.
On a hot and humid Saturday, the Cougars’ gym was abuzz with the activity of the state’s elite male and female lifters.
The largest Queensland contingent ever to travel to a national weightlifting championship will be at Hawthorn in Melbourne for the Olitek 2014 National Championships. Fifty-eight weightlifters will represent Queensland over three days of competition at this year’s Olitek Nationals, starting on Friday.
The Cougars club is once again well represented, with 22 lifters, two coaches and a manager representing the state, including Redland City’s Luke Gardner, Georgia Gaffney and coaches Miles and Angela Wydall.
From the pool of 58 athletes, the Queensland Weightlifting Association has nominated lifters who will accrue points in the National Team Championships for senior men, senior women, junior men and junior women.
The selection of athletes to make up these “teams-within-a-team” is based on their current national ranking and limited by the competition regulations to eight men and seven women, with no more than two athletes in the same bodyweight category, plus two reserves per team.
Queensland is out to retain the senior and junior women’s titles they won last year and regain the men’s titles, and the mantle of the nation’s top weightlifting state.
Anyone interested in trying weightlifting can visit the club’s website
