How teen turned injury into Commonwealth gold

A teenager who joined a gym to help fix a knee injury has said he is ecstatic after winning a Commonwealth title for powerlifting.

Lucas Williams has soared through the ranks of young lifters and has just returned from South Africa with a clutch of gold and silver medals.

The 19-year-old from Holyhead on Anglesey started lifting weights only three years ago and now represents Wales.

But he faced huge personal challenges to lift his latest title - including catching Covid just two weeks before flying to Sun City.

Feeling "very weak", he lost about 9lb (4kg) in four days and feared "it might be over".

But he was not about to disappoint his family back home or those who helped him raise £2,500 just to get him to the competition.

"With powerlifting there's no funding, no sponsors, there's no money in it to win. It's an amateur sport," he said.

The trainee welder, who also works in a gym, managed to raise about half the cash with an online funding campaign and the community in Holyhead rallied around to get the rest.

He said: "Pretty much the whole community chipped in. I'd like to say thank you to everyone - it did help a lot. They're the reason I went."

When Lucas stepped out onto the stage at the Commonwealth Powerlifting and Bench Press Championships, he felt ready to deliver.

"Before the competition I get nervous. But once I'm there, once I've warmed up, once I'm lifting - I do it every day - it's normal.

"You're focused, zoned in, and you don't pay attention to the crowd."

The sport of powerlifting differs from what many recognise in the Olympics.

While the aim is the same - lift the heaviest weights possible - but the movements are very different.

There are three disciplines: Deadlift, squat and bench press.

The deadlift is about lifting a weighted bar from the floor and standing upright, the squat involves a weighted bar on your back while the bench press requires competitors to lift the bar while lying down.

"Powerlifting is a lot easier to get into. It's a lot more about raw strength," explained Lucas.

"Most high-level Olympic weightlifters have been training since they were kids. It takes years and years to drill in the technique and form. So, obviously it's not as accessible to a lot of people."

Lucas said the attraction of powerlifting was that anyone can walk into a gym and start learning themselves, "just from watching videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram".

In the squat competition, Lucas took gold with a lift of 252kg (555lb), silver in the bench press, lifting 162.5kg (358lb) and gold and a Commonwealth junior record for his deadlift with a lift of 313.5kg (691lb).

He took the overall championship title as best junior lifter.

"I don't want to sound cocky - I had some idea I was going to win anyway - based on all the other lifters.

"It felt really good. My mam - she's over the moon. My family are probably more proud than I am."

He is now looking forward to his next competition, a home nations showdown in Scotland where he will be moving up a weight class, from 83kg to 93kg.

It means he has had to change his diet to put on some body weight.

"My first meal is a massive bowl of porridge with peanut butter, dark chocolate, banana, honey. I eat a lot of beef, eggs, a lot of milk, rice, a lot of whole foods."

Lucas estimates he is downing about 4,500 calories a day, compared to a normal adult average of about 2,200.

"I have to eat a lot more and it's getting hard now," he confessed.