Roodepoort weightlifter breaks record at first World Championship
He ended with an overall sixth place
Weightlifter, George Lopes, 28, made new memories and set new records at the SBD Log Lift World Championships that took place in Lithuania, Europe.
George started his weightlifting journey in 2017, and said, “My best friend, Jared Leask, was the one who got me to join in on weightlifting. He was the one who made me passionate about log lifting, and got me to start competing in ther South African Strongest Man event. I have also been watching Zydrunas Sawickas, he is the only modern competitor to have won every major strongman competition, and that also played a part in my decision to take up weightlifting.”
Since then he competed in a couple of local weightlifting competitions, and made his way to the World Championships for the first time this year, achieved a sixth place out of the 40 participants from all over the world. George also broke the South African log lifting record for the U/90kg’s weightlifting. The record stood at 130kg and he managed to lift a 135kg log.
To compete in such a big competition, you have to be mentally and physically prepared. Competing against weightlifters from all over the world is a whole new experience and is much different from local competitions. “For me to physically and mentally prepare myself, I set out my plans and goals that I would like to achieve and try to focus on myself and not think of the other competitors. It was also my first time traveling overseas, and that alone was a wonderful experience. Seeing the different cultures and the style was just something different. And competing against people from all over was a bit overwhelming. It played a lot on my mentality, but I stayed focused on my main goal, that was to beat the SA u.90kg record, and so I did,” George explained.
But, this weightlifters’ dreams does not end there, his next goal is to break the Log lifting world record for the U/90kg’s that is currently standing at 166kg.
“My moto in life is, dream as if you’ll live forever, and live as if you’ll die today,” George concluded.
