I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who showed me support for the National Weightlifting Championships last night – especially the crew that came down to Chandler and sat up until nearly midnight to watch me lift. I really didn’t expect to have anyone there to watch me and the effort that you guys put in is very much appreciated.
Unfortunately I didn’t have the best night of lifting. The plan was to lift conservatively in the snatch with 80-84-86 and then come home strong and hopefully set a new PR in the Clean & Jerk. This plan quickly changed as I got my opening lift on 80kg and then missed my second and third on 84kg. This left me 5kg behind where I needed to be after the Snatch so my only option was to try to make it up in the Clean & Jerk. I opened up with a successful 107kg, I then went up to 111kg (a lift I had completed easily 2 weeks ago) but did a crappy clean and standing up from the catch took heaps out of me and I failed my jerk. From there I was faced with the dilemma of trying to go up to 113kg (which would have put me first in my group) or go for the 111kg again. I decided to go for the 111kg again and did the clean a bit better this time but still not well enough to be able to complete the jerk and finished with a total of 187kg (which is 10kg lighter than my last competition result of only 2 weeks ago).
I am definitely disappointed that I could not put my best foot forward on the night but in the grand scheme of it all, I never expected to be lifting at this level so early into my lifting career. The bonus is that I learned some valuable lessons and I came away motivated that with a full year of weightlifting specific training under my belt that I should be able to come back next year and possibly put on a good show.
A special thanks to Linzey Beister from the Gold Coast Weightlifting Club for helping me out in the warm-up area.
