London 2012 Competition Manager Appointed

With 871 days to the London 2012 Olympics and 904 days to the London 2012 Paralympics, Matthew Curtain, Competition Manager for both Olympic Weightlifting and Paralympic Powerlifting, working for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games & Paralympic Games (known as LOCOG) is looking to keep everyone informed through regular updates on the British Weightlifting & World Class Lifting websites as well as series of articles via this medium.

Louis Martin, BWLA President, is impressed by the WCL High Performance Centre

Louis Martin, this week, visited the WCL High Performance Centre in Leeds.  This was a great opportunity for the WCL staff to ask Louis what he did in training and his experiences of lifting in three Olympics (1960,1964,1968). The WCL Centre got a seal of approval from Louis who stated “I wish I was a young lifter now, I really struggled working full time and then spending almost 3 hours in the gym most evenings.  I would  have loved  the opportunity to get financial support and to be able to train out of a High Performance Centre.  The WCL HPC is one of the best facilities I have ever seen”. Louis also had the opportunity to spend some time in the gym with WCL Head coach Tamas Feher and WCL squad athlete Natasha Perdue.  Louis competed in the past with Natasha’s father, Terry Perdue  who was a renowned Welsh lifter and a fellow  member of the Great Britain team for the 1968 Olympics . “It was really special to have Louis come into my training session tonight, he was such a great lifter and it was nice he had some good stories about my father.  This has really motivated me to to lift well in the European Championships, which are in five weeks. I can then focus on the Commonwealth Games in Delhi and then to go on to make the Great Britain team for London.”

As BWLA President, Louis has pledged his support of the WCL Programme and is pleased to see WCL and BWLA sharing office space and administration staff.

Full details of Louis’s weightlifting achievements can be found here.

Great Britain Team for European Championships

Congratulations to the following lifters who have been selected for the European Championships in Minsk, Belarus, from the 4^th-12^th April 2010. This is a significantly larger team than was sent to the Europeans in 2009 when only one athlete lifted and is an indication of the improvements being made by these athletes in the last year.

Joanne Calvino (53kg)      ENG    Crystal Palace    Keith Morgan

Helen Jewell (58kg)           ENG    Ivy Bridge             Michaela Breeze / Tamas Feher

Natasha Perdue (69kg)     WAL                                  Tamas Feher

Gareth Evans (62kg)          WAL      Anglesey            Ray Williams

Peter Kirkbride (94kg)       SCO    Kilmarnock         Charles Hamilton