Bangor Students triumphant at English Weightlifting Championships

Hannah Powell & Joshua PeacockTwo Bangor University students won gold and silver medals at the 2015 English Weightlifting Championships in Castleford, West Yorkshire recently.

With over a 100 entries, the competition saw many impressive performances including Bangor Sports Scholarship winner, Hannah Powell returning from injury.

Hannah, 22, from Birmingham is currently on her first year of a Sports Science degree and has been a professional weightlifter since she was 14 and now represents Great Britain.

Hannah won gold medal in the Women’s 48kg class, said “I'm extremely happy to win my English title, after having an unlucky few years of injuries, this marks the end of that bad luck and the beginning of a good year. Although pleased with my result there is much room for improvement in my performance and that is now my priority.”

Fellow student, Joshua Peacock competed in the Men’s 105kg+ class and came away triumphant with a silver medal.

Joshua, 23, from Manchester is in his fourth and final year of a degree in Sport Science with International Experience. Last year he completed his International year out at the University of West Florida. Whilst there he competed in a few competitions including a competition in Pensacola, which he won, and the Mississippi State Championships, where he finished in a very respectable third place.   

Joshua says, “I started weightlifting around two and a half years ago, initially to improve my Rugby, but I began to prefer it so just started to focus on my lifting”.

Before he went to the States Joshua entered a few competitions in the UK including the Student championships where he finished in second place. He is currently training for the Student Championships in April and the British Championships in July.

Publication date: 5 March 2015