body-by-chili

Sports

GB becoming a powerlifting power By Andrew Coakley

FN Sports Editor

"Grand Bahama is going to be the powerlifting capital of this country," said president of The Bahamas Powerlifting Federation, Rex Burnside.

"Based on the determination, the quality and quantity of lifters, which I see Grand Bahama is presenting now, they are progressing in terms of having more people come on the scene in the sport of powerlifting.

"Grand Bahama is moving a lot more rapidly, and this is what I like."

The Federation President said that they are now looking at Grand Bahama a lot more seriously than they have in the past.

He was impressed with the large number of new lifters from Grand Bahama who took part in Saturday's competition.

He is convinced that if Grand Bahama continues to add new lifters to their association, Grand Bahama would become a force to reckon with on the national stage.

Burnside is now confident that he made the right decision to bring this year's Powerlifting Nationals to Grand Bahama.

Although prior to Saturday it was 10 years since the Nationals was held outside of Nassau, Burnside said that he wanted to boost the powerlifting program here in Grand Bahama, and at the same time help the Federation save monies in terms of expenses.

"When we were looking at hosting the event in Grand Bahama, we looked at a number of things including cost and expenses," said Burnside.

"When we looked at it, the truth was Grand Bahama has more lifters at this time than Nassau and so it would have cost us more money to pay for all those athletes to fly from Grand Bahama to Nassau, than to have our athletes fly to Freeport."

Apart from the fact that the Federation saved some money in the hosting of this year's Nationals, what made the powerlifting president even more excited was the success of this year's Nationals.

Asked how he felt about the competition, Burnside wasted no time in expressing how pleased he was in the way the competition was run by the local Association.

"This was one of the best Nationals we've had in a long time," said Burnside.

"Everything ran smoothly...in fact, the guys here in Freeport made us look bad in Nassau.

"That competition was run in record time compared to the events in the past."

The competition was supposed to have started at nine on Saturday morning, but never got started until around 11 a.m. However, Burnside said that they were still able to complete all of the flights and the stages of the competition and were finished around 4:30 p,.m.

The athletes and members of both the Federation and Association were able to go out and get supper, before Burnside and his crew headed to the airport to fly back to Nassau.

Burnside said that with so many new and young athletes joining the GB Association, more Grand Bahama powerlifters will be a part of national teams travelling to represent The Bahamas in the sport of powerlifting.

Although Nassau won overall, Burnside said that Grand Bahama has an arsenal of powerlifters who will eventually be the talk of the town in the very near future.

He took note of lifters like "Woody" Woodside, Crystal Munnings, Kevin Watson, steve Wilson, Bernard Rolle Jr. and of course, the legendary Bernard "Spinx" Rolle.

Leslie White won the squat with a lift of 650 pounds, "Spinx" won the bench with a lift of 403 as well as he won the deadlift with a total of 650 pounds.