Weightlifting career well planned for Attrill

Press, 23 September 1987, Page 49

Weightlifting career well planned for Attrill

By

MALCOLM CONDIE

Terms like pulls, shrugs, back squats and jerks may not be familiar to many of us but to Lee Attrill, the only serious competitive weightlifter in Canterbury, they are all part of his daily training routine. Attrill, aged 19, has his sporting future well planned. He has set long and short term aims for himself and with his dedication to the sport is likely to succeed in both.

His first interest in weightlifting developed after the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch when he went to the Y.M.C.A. weightlifting gymnasium in Hereford Street where Graham May was working out. May won a gold medal in the super-heavyweight class in the 1974 games. Attrill entered his first serious competition at the age of 12 as a paperweight and has worked his way up since then. “I started off right from the bottom,” he said.

Now as a light-middleweight he holds two New Zealand records and has set 19 Canterbury weightlifting records in two years.

Still only a junior, Attrill has two years before breaking through into the senior ranks but already competes in the open events.

Last year, in his weight, he was second in the New Zealand senior nationals.

“I should have won it but I had a wrist injury which held me back a bit,” Attrill said. He has held the national junior title for two years and two weeks ago in Waikato broke two New Zealand records. The first was for clean and jerk lifting in the light-middleweight junior section. Attrill lifted 162.5 kg, which when added to his 120 kg snatch lift, also gave him the New Zealand combined record of 282.5 kg. Apart from a few months before the last Oceania Games, when May coached him, Attrill has been coaching himself. “I train two-and-a-half hours, five nights a week.” That training includes lifting weights and very little else. At times Attrill finds training tiring. “It’s fatiguing working all day and coming into the gym and trying to lift well.” Attrill’s biggest worry though, is lack of finance.

“Lack of sponsorship is the hardest thing about weightlifting,” Attrill said. “That plays on your mind when you're trying to train hard.”

Attrill is still in debt from his recent trip to the Oceania Games and Commonwealth championships in Canberra in June. He has been looking for a sponsor

for some time and finds he may have to compromise between his sport and his work. “I’m debating what to do with my life at the moment. Either I’ll train full time and have no money, or work hard until six months before the 1990 s (Commonwealth Games) then train full time. I don’t know yet.” Attrill considers the only reason he can not go to the Seoul Olympics next year is because of lack of sponsorship. “If I had sponsorship I’d be up 30kg on what my total is now,” he said.

Attrill goes through a pair of weightlifting boots a year, and a pair of Olympic boots are $230 a pair. He can not afford them and can not even afford to go back to physiotherapy to have his injured wrist checked on. In three weeks he is aiming at breaking the 300 kg total lift. That has been done only once before by a junior in New Zealand, Graham May. Attrill’s attempt will be at the senior nationals in Nelson. At the moment, he is lifting 122 kg for a snatch and 162 kg for a clean and jerk in training and is looking for 130 kg and 170 kg respectively for the championships. Several days before competing he must stop taking in body

fluids and concentrate on losing weight. He trains slightly heavy for his class and has to lose weight for competitions. The problem is that by losing weight the power comes off your legs, Attrill says. After the senior nationals, Attrill will be training for the junior world championships in Athens, in July next year and is hoping he will have the money to attend.

He thinks he will be just about reaching his first peak for that event.

Weightlifters have two peaks in their career Attrill says. Once when they’re aged between 20 and 22 and again at the age of about 27 or 28.

With his dedicated training for these events, Attrill is sure to be impressive when he peaks and is not afraid of burning himself out too young. “I started off slowly and am gradually coming up now,” he said. “There are no problems pacing yourself. Your body tells you what it can take.” After this year, Attrill will move up a weight class and get more competition from the middle-heavyweights, even if it is from the senior competitors in New Zealand.

He is not daunted about competing/ in a new class, against bigger lifters. “Winning medals is easy, the hard training is the hardest part,” he said. _