A newcomer to the sport, Meredith Barwick-Plant (12) impressed to become the British Olympic Weighlifting U13 44kg championship with a great display of strength and technique at the Castleford finals.
The youngster has only been lifting weights for seven months, but has made a big impression since joining North Shields club Cube Fit with Josh Mosavi, who has respresented Iran at the Olympics.
And such is the potential in Meredith that her coach is already priming her for the European and World Youth Championships, in Poland and Malaysia respectively, when she turns 13.
Going into the national event as northern region champion, Meredith executed the skills honed from training four days a week perfectly.
With the positions based on a mixture of weights and technique, Merdieth lifted a combined weight of 62kg with personal bests in both the snatch (27kg) and clean and jerk (35kg).
She said: “People often say that I don’t look like a weightlifter because I’m small, but they get it mixed up with bodybuilding. Weightlifting is all about technique. I feel like the Olympics in 2020 could be a possibility as Josh said he was going to train us for the Europeans and Worlds, and I couldn’t believe it. He said seven months ago that I would be British champion, and I didn’t believe him then, but it happened! I was really happy to win as I felt confident.”
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