The future is bright @WelshWeightlift
After receiving a Sport Wales grant to help in setting up the Strength Academy Wales centre in Pembrokeshire, former teacher and elite weightlifter Simon Roach became Performance Director of Weightlifting Wales in late 2013.
Here, he gives an update on some of the developments at the top of the sport.
Since 2012, Weightlifting Wales has delivered a strong Olympic Legacy - not only developing the number of lifters throughout all age categories (40 to 89) - but also increasing the number of affiliated clubs (5 to 13), coaches (9 to 25), officials (6 to 27) and performance centres (1 to 4).
To indicate the scale of development, the recent Welsh Schools Championships doubled in the number of entries compared to 2013.
It has been a strong ambition of Weightlifting Wales to re-establish the sport at Sport Wales National Centre in Cardiff so we have a centre of excellence for Welsh sport in our traditional home.
Investment from Sport Wales has enabled our Governing Body to put in place the necessary equipment to create a high performance weightlifting centre, not only for squad training events, but also for national and international competitions.
The performance grant allowed for a new flooring - specially designed for weightlifting - and high quality lifting equipment including bars, weights, pulling blocks and jerk tables.
Weightlifting Wales has already held our National Senior Championships this year at National Centre.
This was a great success, with the facility having upgraded equipment allowing for an exciting high performance competition to take place. The standard of lifting was exceptional and was the first event where a qualifying standard had to be met by senior lifters to enter.
We now aim to use the facility more and more. Our elite squad of lifters gather at National Centre to train in a high performance environment. We are delighted to be back, and with the sport growing so quickly our usage of National Centre has been well overdue.
In the past 3 months Welsh weightlifting records have been smashed across the age groups.
School age records:
Breeze’s gym
Ellie Mai Pryor, Ffion Hanna Owen, Taylor Addicott, Samuel Ashton
Willpower
Jordan Sakkas
HAWFC
Sam Henderson, Catrin Jones
Unique Fitness
Matthew Thomas
Strength Academy Wales
Louis Thomas
Under 23 records…
Phil Eaton – Non club member
Lucy Philips - Willpower
Senior records…
Michaela Breeze – Breeze’s Gym
The British Senior Weightlifting Championships take place on 10th and 11thMay. Last year we had six Welsh athletes competing – this year we have 18. That is a big jump and a sign of the performance structure we have developed over a number of years bearing fruit.
This is the last chance for our athletes to qualify for Glasgow 2014. Lifters this weekend are:
Seth Casidsid, HAWFC, 56kg class M
Sam Henderson, HAWFC, 56kg M
Gareth Evans, HAWFC, 62kg M
Sarah Evans, Swansea, 58kg F
Tiffany Brannan, HAWFC, 58kg F
Christie Marie Williams, Breezes's, 58kg F
James Davidson unattached (not part of a club) 69kg M
Owain Wen Rowlands, SAW Cymru, 77kg M
Jonathan Pamment, Breeze's, 77kg M
Owen Satterley, unattached, 85kg M
Phillip James Eaton, unattached, 85kg M
Faye Pittman, Cardiff 63kg - Will not start due to injury F
Stephanie Owens, HAWFC, 63kg F
Gwilym Soin Parri, HAWFC 77kg M
Penny Pearson, Penybont, 69kg F
Amy Evans, Breeze's, 75+kg F
Phillip Pitman, Willpower 94kg M
Rhodri West, Cardiff 94kg, M
Alex Evans, unattached, 94kg M
All performance staff will be coaching – Michaela Breeze, Rhodri Thomas, Ray Williams and myself; and other Weightlifting Wales club coaches, such as Justin Holly, who is now on our coach development programme.
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