CENTRE WELLINGTON – The Ontario Masters Provincials in Olympic Lifting was held in St. Thomas on Feb. 24, and Belinda Cox from Salem set three Ontario records at the event in snatch, clean and jerk, and total.
Three individuals from Listowel also did well, according to Alison Brown, their coach at New U Fitness in Listowel.
Karla Daviau competed for the first time at age 62 and earned a silver medal in her age and weight class, while Stephanie Brooks and Angie Alexander came home with gold.
Belinda Cox
“Fifty-two kilograms is my previous personal best last year, and it’s a number that I wouldn’t say I could for sure hit,” said Cox.
The 45-year-old weightlifter has been involved in the fitness community for years.
Beginning as a wrestler for 15 years, Cox wrestled through high school, university and then competed for Canada at the international level.
After getting married and starting a family in 2008, Cox found herself getting heavily involved in CrossFit, which led to her love for Olympic-style weightlifting – something she only began doing about three years ago.
“It’s such a different experience than my prior sport experience,” she explained.
Weightlifting is different, she said, because “you don’t really practice at 100 per cent, you do a percentage.”
Olympic weightlifting is done in “cycles” and lifters will often only practice with 70 to 75% of the weight they can actually lift, then will move up to 90 to 95% the week before competition.
Provincial record
While at the competition in St. Thomas, Cox said she was unsure if she could snatch 52kg, but chose that as her starting weight.
Once chosen, the starting weight can’t be lowered and competitors are allowed only three tries for a successful lift at that weight.
She accomplished lifting 52kg in her first snatch, and remembered there was a previous record of 54 kilos.
“I know I need more than 54, so we went with 55 [for the second lift],” said Cox.
She had never lifted 55kg in snatch in practice, but she was successful and is now the new Ontario record holder in snatch, along with clean and jerk, and total (the sum of a clean and jerk and snatch).
Cox wasn’t seeking provincial records.
“Each time I go into a competition [I am] striving to improve my personal best,” she said.
Most burpees
Brown, a coach at New U Fitness, first heard of Cox about three years ago, while reading in the Advertiser that Cox had beaten her own Guinness World Record for burpees in an hour.
Brown’s burpee record was 715, while Cox got up to 775.
“I emailed her because I thought ‘anybody as crazy as me to do that many burpees in one hour … I need to congratulate this person’ because I had complete respect,” said Brown.
“Literally right from that moment we were just friends. We went out for coffee, we got together for workouts, we started just hanging out and then she started Olympic lifting with me.”
Now coaching at Better Tomorrow Barbell Club, a weightlifting club at Centre Wellington District High School, Cox said she has many young women coming out to lift.
Women’s Day
International Women’s Day is March 8, and March also marks Women’s History Month. Cox said lifting is good “for women to see themselves being strong at all ages … It’s not just a men’s sport.”
Brown added, “Like anything, women in sport shows other women, and gives other women permission.”
She noted that if women like herself and Cox did not step up to the platform, it might not have opened doors for other people.
“This sport is filled with women who really do lift other women up, who cheer them on, [and] who want to see them succeed,” said Brown.
