Male and female powerlifters came together in Mount Isa on December 9 to push and pull through their first local contest in more than 20 years.
Stack City Fitness hosted the Push/Pull powerlifting contest, organised by strength athlete and QAS paramedic, Scott Jones.
Jones was thrilled with numbers for the inaugural contest, as 20 athletes brought tens more spectators to the gym on Saturday.
“Normally you have about 20 per cent of people who don’t show up. But we only had two people who got called into work, so we had 20 competitors,” Jones said.
“The people watching were great, the atmosphere was nice, and the overall turnout was just fantastic.”
The youngest competitor was 17 years old, the oldest was 47 – a Mount Isa local who remembers competing in Mount Isa’s original contests.
"Pete was around in Mount Isa when there was powerlifting years ago. I thought it was nice Pete being there competing, having competed 20 years ago,” Jones said.
Women competed at the same time as the men, but in different divisions. The men's division was split into under 100kg and over 100kg, and the women’s division was divided in two by experience level.
Sarah Pizzey won the women’s division, getting the biggest bench press with 55kg and the biggest deadlift with 130kg.
“She is new to the sport, obviously into fitness, and because she is quite strong her friends basically pushed her into competing and she ended up doing really really well,” Jones said.
Jones himself won the men’s bench press with an impressive 170kg.
Alphie Clay took first place in the deadlift, lifting a whopping 270kg.
Much of organisation for the event consisted of loading and unloading weights around the gym.
“The guys who did the loading moved about 4000kg throughout the day, we worked out,” Jones said.
Jones plans to hold more powerlifting events for Mount Isa in the new year, with the next one announced for March 3.
“It just gives people something to compete in in the summer. It’s a nice easy way of competing because you’ve only got to practice three things in powerlifting, so it’s really easy to train for,” Jones said.
“And all the lifts, everyone pretty much does in the gym anyway.”
Like Mount Isa Strongman on Facebook for details on the next powerlifting event, which will include all three powerlifting events; squat, dead lift, and bench press.