Four lifting records fall as vegan powerlifting champ competes in Europe
A demonstration of vegan power at the Western European Powerlifting Championships saw Hulda B Waage break four of her own Icelandic records – yet she is confident more is to come.
Competing at 84kg (equipped), she bench pressed an impressive 140 kg, adding 7 kg to her own record. This was also a record for bench singlelift a category including competitions which are bench only, not full powerlifting.
Her squat of 222.5 kg also added 10 kg to her squat record, and was the third placed squat across all weight categories. Her deadlift of 170 kg meant she had a total of 532,5 kg, beating her own record by 10kg.
“I’m happy but also wanted to do better” Hulda told Great Vegan Athletes. “The circumstances were far from what I'm used to. The bar we competed with was not the best and the floor was so slippery”.
“We don't need much but at my club we have new lifting bars and good platforms to lift on. At this meet the bars were older and had more of a loose grip. The platform was also slippery. I can take a lot from this meet and learned a lot.”
Hulda was also surprised at some of the refereeing decisions, in a competition where, unusually for her, she saw four of her lifts fail.
“But hey, I just have suck it up and adapt” she says, finishing 4th in a very strong U84 kg category and 10th overall – also taking the Bronze medal for squat.
The vegan Viking is already looking ahead with bigger plans. “We've been aiming at a total of 547.5kg and the training has shown that a total of 560kg should be doable. I think I've got a whole lot in the tank and that in few years’ time I could peak and be one of the top lifters with IPF.”
The hardworking vegan, gave up animal products in 2014 after years of interest in veganism starting as a teenager. Her aspirations mean that she will be soon starting preparations for her next challenges in November of this year. Before that, she may be spotted in Ireland.
“Next up is travelling to Dublin, Ireland on Thursday for the Dublin vegfest which I'm very excited about. And when I come back home I will start a new training cycle for the Icelandic cup in November.”
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