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A top athlete known as the ‘Vegan Viking’ has broken four of her own records.
Icelandic powerlifter Hulda B Waage was competing at the Western European Powerlifting Championships when she smashed fur of her own national records.
The athlete finished fourth in a very strong U84 kg category and 10th overall – also taking the Bronze medal for squat.
Records
Competing at 84kg (equipped), Waage bench pressed 140kg, adding 7kg to her own record. This was also a record for bench single lift a category including competitions which are bench only, not full powerlifting.
Her squat of 222.5kg also added 10kg to her squat record, and was the third placed squat across all weight categories.
Her deadlift of 170kg meant she had a total of 532.5kg, beating her own record by 10kg.
‘Wanted to do better’
“I’m happy but also wanted to do better,” Waage told Great Vegan Athletes. “The circumstances were far from what I’m used to. The bar we competed with was not the best and the floor was so slippery.
“We don’t need much but at my club we have new lifting bars and good platforms to lift on. At this meet the bars were older and had more of a loose grip. The platform was also slippery. I can take a lot from this meet and learned a lot.”
The athlete was surprised at some of the refereeing decisions, in a competition where, unusually for her, she saw four of her lifts fail. “But hey, I just have suck it up and adapt,” she said.
Vegan Viking
Waage is already looking ahead with bigger plans. “We’ve been aiming at a total of 547.5kg and the training has shown that a total of 560kg should be doable. I think I’ve got a whole lot in the tank and that in few years’ time I could peak and be one of the top lifters with the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF).
These aspirations mean she will be soon starting preparations for her next challenges in November of this year. Before that, she may be spotted in Ireland.
“Next up is travelling to Dublin, Ireland on Thursday for the Dublin VegFest which I’m very excited about. And when I come back home I will start a new training cycle for the Icelandic cup in November,” she said.
