Heavy lifters pick up gold at champs
The newly formed powerlifting team, Highway Iron, broke 26 national and six world records at the RPC championships recently.
SHEER strength and determination allowed three Highway residents to break six world records at the RPC National Powerlifting Champs in Pretoria recently.
Powerlifting consists of three disciplines, squats, bench press and deadlift. The Highway Iron team consists of 12 members, Ashley Horner, Michael De Oliveira, Shaun McCreedy, Louis Schoeman, Brendon Vannan, Grant Fullerton, Bruce Pridgeon, Diego Cardona, Ashleigh Piper, Waldo Preston, Zane Ison and their coach, and fellow team member, Donovan Morris.
Eleven of the team members competed in the recent championship, where they went up against 70 other competitors, and broke a combined total of 26 national records.
Ashleigh Piper, a 22-year-old who falls into the junior section, broke the world record for doing a 142.5kg deadlift in the 67.5kg category. Waldo Preston, 22, who also competed in the junior section, broke a world record for doing a 342.5kg deadlift in the 125kg category.
Zane Ison went on to break a further four world records. Competing in the masters 2 level in the super heavy weight section, he did a 330kg squat, a bench press of 197.5kg and a deadlift of 300kg. He also broke the world record for the highest combined weight lifted of 827.5kg in his class.
“Everybody in the team did really well and won their divisions and breaking the world records was a real achievement. I would like to thank our sponsors Skull Energy Drink, Cipla Nutrition and Sign Force for their continuous support,” said Donovan Morris, the Highway iron team coach.
The entire Highway Iron team said they were extremely grateful for the tremendous support they received from their families and their devoted coach, without which, they said they would not have been successful.
The team will host the Iron Gladiators event in November this year, which will be one of the qualifiers for next year’s RPC national championship.
