Vegan takes medal with massive kettlebell count

Hege is no stranger to success with two national championships, a European title and two placings at the World Championships behind her.

She’s returned to competition with second place at the Balkans Championships.

Hege entered the 10 minute snatch event for 68+kg.  It’s an event for maximum repetitions using a 16 kg kettlebell and allows just one change of hand during the time limit.

It’s an event she’s previously done well at.  This time she managed 210 reps, an increase of 21 on her awesome Gold medal performance at the European Championships at the end of last year.

“200+ is very hard to do” Hege told Great Vegan Athletes. “I have been training very sports specific all thru summer. I also have a coach again, which has helped me a lot.”

Hege has been vegan since 2010 and all her successes have been as a vegan.  She’s also broken a world record for indoor skiing and that was also vegan.

“I didn’t start training until after I turned vegan, so all my power is built by plants – I think that’s pretty awesome !” 

Hege works for NOAH, Norway’s premier animal rights organisation, and the misuse of animals was a primary reason to make the change.

“It was something I worked towards a couple of years before, and I got the final push and motivation for going all in from fellow animal rights activists and finally the famous speech from Gary Yourofsky.”

Hege doesn’t have much time to rest though!

“I’m meeting the rest of the Plantbuilt Vegan Strong Team this weekend and competing at the Mr. America Sports Festival” she says.   There’s an amazing team meeting up there and Hege will aiming to repeat her fantastic performance!