Marilia’s Powerlifting Blog

Saturday, December 1^st, we had a WABDL Bench Press Cup at Atibaia, State of São Paulo, Brazil. Vilmar Oliveira, WABDL vice-president for South America was present and actually giving me special support, since about a week earlier I had suffered a rather important accident and broken my nose. 

We drove Friday afternoon to Atibaia and were received by the organizers. This is the second WABDL meet I take part on and I feel they keep the standard: organized and hospitable. I wonder if the atmosphere was not one of complete support and attention to every athlete’s needs I would have accomplished what I did: I had a sore throat because my broken nose prevented me from breathing well. Friday, I developed an intestinal flu. I slept very little and woke up feeling quite sick. At the weigh in, my weight was only 53kg (116.6 lb). It made no sense to keep on the 56kg (123.2 lb) category. I was going to the bathroom every 10 minutes and losing weight fast. As soon as I reached 52kg (114.4 lb), we stopped weighing, but I never stopped “emptying” myself. I received all the support I needed and felt specially cared for. 

It is not easy to pass the bar to me: I am a very small lifter, with extremely short arms and a wide bridge. A local lifter with the organizing committee, Diego, volunteered to do it for me. He did so in a perfect and controlled manner. The white plastic chair, my special focusing device, was immediately provided. I sat there and waited for my turn. The president of the State Federation, Mr. Andre Souza, managed my weights on my request. Knowing that I was somewhat debilitated, he calculated the minimum increase necessary for record breaking purposes. I trusted him completely and I didn’t miss a lift. Juliana, a coach from Peruibe, “adopted” me and stood by me during all my lifts. On the movie, you can hear her strong commands for me not to stop pressing. 

I could add a few scatological comments on my permanent concern with my diarrhea and with a possible embarrassment an “accident” on this line could cause. But let’s leave that for some other occasion.  

The last lift was calculated to be 0.5kg (1.1 lb) heavier than the previous record for my weight category. And I lifted 100,5kg (221.1 lb). I broke the world open record. 

Saturday was my special day – a day I will never forget. As far as I know and have been told, I am the second Brazilian to break a world open record in powerlifting, in any federation. Today is Wednesday and this fact is still slowly sinking in. It is hard to describe exactly what I feel: a mixture of sense of accomplishment, happiness, gratitude (a lot of gratitude), perplexity, awe and some sadness. I hoped to share the happiness of my deed with many fellow countrymen, but I think this is when you discover that not everybody is glad with the advancement of the sport, or the victory of a team, or any collective action. Collective “things” are complicated entities. They involve contradictory feelings, interests and behaviors. 

But for now, I wish to shove all these thoughts aside. I want to live this moment – my moment – in plenitude. And share my happiness with those who can, express my gratitude to those who deserve and live on, since this is just the beginning of a very long journey. One that makes everything else meaningful. 

One good thing of writing about this on this space is being able to express my understanding that we are a WORLD brotherhood and sisterhood of the Iron arts. My first e-mail concerning this meet was directed to Jon (from Powerlifting Watch, who gives me a sense of responsibility in writing sober analysis about the sport), to Shawn (Lattimer, who coaches me as he can, thousands of miles away from me) and to Alan (Thomas, from APTProWristStraps, my sponsor, who has provided me with everything I have ever needed in terms of equipment, who publishes my articles and gives me all the support he can offer). I owe a lot to them and to many other people from all over the world who write to me and give me this essential sense of belonging we all need. 

This mark is dedicated to you, my brothers and sisters, and may it soon be overcome by some other stronger woman, showing that the road to strength and power is an endless one. It is a great honor to have built a small step on it. 

Marilia 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 10:00 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.