The future of Pilbara powerlifting is now with a rare tournament in South Hedland

In the land of footy and cricket, a gym in South Hedland has sought to increase the popularity of a sport that does not get much attention in the Pilbara — powerlifting. Life and Soul Fitness hosted its first-ever powerlifting tournament on Sunday, September 17, with 22 people from the Pilbara taking part in the competition. In powerlifting, athletes undertake three different lifts — squat, deadlift, and bench press — to see who can put up the highest combined total. Life and Soul manager Sarah Phillips organised the tournament and said because there was hardly any powerlifting in the Pilbara she wanted to grow the sport in the region. “We don’t see a lot of powerlifting up here,” she said. “A lot of the time you have to travel to the metro areas to see and compete in one. “So to have one in the region is pretty special.” Roughly 100 people attended the gym’s inaugural powerlifting competition which was also streamed live on the internet. While the competition was unsanctioned, Ms Phillips said the intention was to make the meet as close to the real thing as possible by adhering to the International Powerlifting Federation rule book. She said that given the great participation and feedback, the club would like to do sanctioned events in the future. “One of the judges said we could definitely make this a sanctioned event going forward,” Ms Phillips said. “There are just a lot of things you have to do, like register your club and be a member of the federation. “With the first one, we just wanted to bring the vibe of what a real powerlifting event felt like. “We definitely aren’t saying no to any future events. “But it is a pretty cool title.” The female winner of the competition was r Angela Liu and the male winner was Azahary Razali. They received $500 each for their wins.