Illness and some late hiccups didn’t prevent Masterton’s Harry Kent from powering his way to two gold medals at the World Powerlifting Championships in Rome last week.
Kent won both the World Open and World Masters [45–49] Under 94kg Bench Press, exceeding his expectations after he was struck down with illness on his arrival in Italy and then had to deal with late rule changes, last minute withdrawals, last minute entries and what he described as some very underhanded tactics from the Australians and the Armenians.
“I had become quite ill in the week before the champs and lost a lot of form, but with my team of coaches in support, I managed to turn the tables on my opponents,” Kent said.
“It was an intense tactical and psychological battle, and ultimately, my top adversary in the Open Class [Ashot Antonyna] from Armenia cracked under the pressure, missing both his opening and final lifts, handing me the Open Gold medal.”
Kent achieved his winning lift of 153kg on his second attempt and then missed his third press of 158kg.
He admits to being disappointed by not lifting 160kg or more, although he put that down to the illness he picked up travelling to Rome.
Kent said the gold medals make up for what has been a challenging year, including injury and illness that severely hampered his build-up.
It started in March when an office chair Kent was sitting on snapped, causing him to fall backwards to the floor and on top of the broken chair, resulting in a significant cut and bruising to the side of his spine.
After his recovery from the fall, Kent was hospitalised with appendicitis.
He avoided surgery in favour of IV antibiotics but developed a blood clot in his arm where they inserted the IV.
Kent reckoned he lost several weeks of training and a lot of strength during his recovery.
“Because my body was still recovering from all of the illness, I could hardly train at all, and in fact, on some days, I actually couldn’t.
“I went from comfortably lifting 160kg plus on any day of the week to an unconvincing 130kg on a good day, and I went from training two to four hours per day, five days per week, to one hour a day two or three days per week.”
He said at that point, he had almost given up the idea of competing at the Worlds.
“Slowly, things improved, and then the date for the Worlds was pushed out by two months. I began to dream again, and I set a target for the NZ Champs to give myself a chance at competing, and I guess the rest now is history.”
