Powerlifting teacher goes from maths class to world class in year

A POWERLIFTING schoolteacher from Northern Ireland has conquered her sport — just a year after first picking up a weight.

Lucille Rowan (50) has told how she was overjoyed to win three medals at powerlifting’s Commonwealth championship in South Africa earlier this year.

She teaches maths at St Malachy’s High, Co Down, and trains in a no-frills gym housed in the corner of an industrial estate.

Lucille took up the sport at 49 after feeling she was losing a bit of her strength and wanting to get toned up.

She had practised yoga so knew she had good flexibility.

“But I did not actually know I was strong until I came in here and the weights just went up and up until (coach) Conor decided seven weeks after I lifted my first weight in here in the powerlifting I was in a competition — after seven sessions,” she said.

By September this year Lucille was on the plane to South Africa, fuelled by adrenaline and pre-competition nerves. Athletes from 11 countries took part in the week-long event.

She competed in the under 72kg class, winning two silver medals and a bronze, and finishing third overall.

She felt “ecstatic” on receiving her medals.

She said: “It has been one of the highlights of my life, in sporting terms the highlight, because

I never would have been considered to be a sportsperson and found it very strange people using the word athlete, I am still in the process of adjusting to that word.”

She said a lot of the girls she taught were now very curious about the sport. “A few

Sporty: Lucille Rowan said that they did not know girls went to the gym, they thought that girls did not do weights. The boys certainly see me totally differently now,” she added.

“There is a bit of ‘cool maths teacher’ — they have a bit more respect for the weights than sometimes they do for academics.”

Coach Conor Gelston has run a gym in Annacloy, near Downpatrick, for three years.

He said the number of women competing in powerlifting was “huge”, adding: “Years ago they were intimidated to go into a weights room — because there was nothing but fellas in it — to try and learn, but now that people are coaching it in their own private studios there are a lot more women getting into it,” he said.