{"id":17285,"date":"2024-11-17T15:06:51","date_gmt":"2024-11-17T15:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/anglesey-teen-lucas-williamss-commonwealth-gold\/"},"modified":"2024-11-17T15:06:51","modified_gmt":"2024-11-17T15:06:51","slug":"anglesey-teen-lucas-williamss-commonwealth-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/anglesey-teen-lucas-williamss-commonwealth-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Anglesey teen Lucas Williams’s Commonwealth gold"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\"BBCBBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Lucas Williams has become Wales’ best young powerlifter and a Commonwealth champion<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

A teenager who joined a gym to help fix a knee injury has said he is ecstatic after winning a Commonwealth title for powerlifting.<\/p>\n

Lucas Williams has soared through the ranks of young lifters and has just returned from South Africa with a clutch of gold and silver medals.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old from Holyhead on Anglesey started lifting weights only three years ago and now represents Wales.<\/p>\n

But he faced huge personal challenges to lift his latest title – including catching Covid just two weeks before flying to Sun City.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Feeling “very weak”, he lost about 9lb (4kg) in four days and feared “it might be over”.<\/p>\n

But he was not about to disappoint his family back home or those who helped him raise \u00a32,500 just to get him to the competition.<\/p>\n

“With powerlifting there’s no funding, no sponsors, there’s no money in it to win. It’s an amateur sport,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The trainee welder, who also works in a gym, managed to raise about half the cash with an online funding campaign and the community in Holyhead rallied around to get the rest. <\/p>\n

He said: “Pretty much the whole community chipped in. I’d like to say thank you to everyone – it did help a lot. They’re the reason I went.”<\/p>\n

When Lucas stepped out onto the stage at the Commonwealth Powerlifting and Bench Press Championships, he felt ready to deliver.<\/p>\n

“Before the competition I get nervous. But once I’m there, once I’ve warmed up, once I’m lifting – I do it every day – it’s normal.<\/p>\n

“You’re focused, zoned in, and you don’t pay attention to the crowd.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"CommonwealthCommonwealth Powerlifting Federation<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Lucas does not have a coach and says “pretty much everything I’ve learnt I’ve taught myself”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

The sport of powerlifting differs from what many recognise in the Olympics. <\/p>\n

While the aim is the same – lift the heaviest weights possible – but the movements are very different.<\/p>\n

There are three disciplines: Deadlift, squat and bench press.<\/p>\n

The deadlift is about lifting a weighted bar from the floor and standing upright, the squat involves a weighted bar on your back while the bench press requires competitors to lift the bar while lying down.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"Lucas<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Bench press is one of the three disciplines in the powerlifting competition<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

“Powerlifting is a lot easier to get into. It’s a lot more about raw strength,” explained Lucas.<\/p>\n

“Most high-level Olympic weightlifters have been training since they were kids. It takes years and years to drill in the technique and form. So, obviously it’s not as accessible to a lot of people.”<\/p>\n

Lucas said the attraction of powerlifting was that anyone can walk into a gym and start learning themselves, “just from watching videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"Commonwealth<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Lucas was crowned overall Commonwealth junior champion after taking the deadlift gold<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
\n

In the squat competition, Lucas took gold with a lift of 252kg (555lb), silver in the bench press, lifting 162.5kg (358lb) and gold and a Commonwealth junior record for his deadlift with a lift of 313.5kg (691lb).<\/p>\n

He took the overall championship title as best junior lifter.<\/p>\n

“I don’t want to sound cocky – I had some idea I was going to win anyway – based on all the other lifters.<\/p>\n

“It felt really good. My mam – she’s over the moon. My family are probably more proud than I am.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

He is now looking forward to his next competition, a home nations showdown in Scotland where he will be moving up a weight class, from 83kg to 93kg.<\/p>\n

It means he has had to change his diet to put on some body weight.<\/p>\n

“My first meal is a massive bowl of porridge with peanut butter, dark chocolate, banana, honey. I eat a lot of beef, eggs, a lot of milk, rice, a lot of whole foods.”<\/p>\n

Lucas estimates he is downing about 4,500 calories a day, compared to a normal adult average of about 2,200.<\/p>\n

“I have to eat a lot more and it’s getting hard now,” he confessed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BBC Lucas Williams has become Wales’ best young powerlifter and a Commonwealth champion A teenager who joined a gym to help fix a knee injury has said he is ecstatic after winning a Commonwealth title for powerlifting. Lucas Williams has soared through the ranks of young lifters and has just returned from South Africa with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[6336,5465,3513,6862,3132,6863],"class_list":["post-17285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wales","tag-anglesey","tag-commonwealth","tag-gold","tag-lucas","tag-teen","tag-williamss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17287,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17285\/revisions\/17287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}