Another load of success for Sunderland weightlifting club

Young weightlifters from Sunderland have done it again, taking 16 medals at a prestigious competition.

The Weights & Cakes club, based in Southwick had 16 young lifters at the Northern Schools Competition in Castleford. They earned 14 gold and two silver medals, as well as three Best Lifter awards from four group events.

Many of the lifters are brand new to the club and the sport and had never been in a competition before, but were very successful despite a few nerves beforehand.

Zoe Chandler, the coach and founder of Weights & Cakes, was delighted with how the youngsters performed.

She said: "There were four groups and we got three Best Lifters, which was fantastic. All the kids did really, really well.

"The new ones who had never done a competition before were really, really nervous and very apprehensive on the day. But they performed well and we had very good scores. It was a very successful day.

"They'd come through some new projects that we'd run which were funded by the Community Foundation."

Zoe, 51, is a competitive weightlifter herself and has had her own recent success. She travelled to Bangor in North Wales for the British Masters Championships - for lifters over the age of 35.

She won in the W50 category, which is for women lifters aged over 50, lifting a personal best of 122kg.

Zoe added: “We've got our next competition at the Raich Carter Centre in May for all the children, where we're running the Nixon Rowell Memorial competition for the second time.

"We've got 60 children and young people from across the area competing."