On Saturday 23rd February, Team Surrey Sports Scholar, Luca Michael, travelled to the English u23 Weightlifting Championships.
Despite only entering the Championships as a warm up for British Championships, Michael returned with a gold medal, and three new British u23 records to his name.
We caught up with the University of Surrey masters student following his incredible weekend to find out more.
“It was an amazing feeling winning the competition, especially as I came off a sub-standard performance in my last competition.” Michael told us.
Having laid down new records of 91kg in the snatch, and 117kg in the clean and jerk, Michael was certainly pleased with his performance this time around.
“This total was 11kg heavier and I was super happy to break the British records in snatch, clean and jerk and the total!
“Now it’s just a case of further increasing the records as much as possible, and attempt to qualify for World University Championships and European u23s at the next national competition. This is all building up towards Commonwealth Games qualification in 2022, which I unfortunately fell short of in 2018.”
As an Occupational and Organisational Psychology Masters student, Michael expressed his gratitude for how the scholarship programme has enabled him to balance study and training.
“At the moment I’m using Surrey Sports Park at least twice a week, and have been fortunate enough to use it for free.
“My scholarship funding has also helped to cover my coaching fees and petrol to travel to competitions.”
We would like to congratulate Luca on his exceptional achievements, and we hope to be able to share more of his successes over the coming months.
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