Beamsville weightlifting champion prepares to compete at World Masters in Athens

A Beamsville athlete is about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime: competing against the best in the world in Athens, Greece.

Weightlifter Michelle Page is already a Canadian champion, but she’s now looking to set records internationally.

The 39-year-old got into weightlifting in her early 20s, but didn’t lift competitively until almost a decade later.

“My first competition was four years ago — my first comp, and I came out, and I hit records on my first comp,” said Page.

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That’s not a bad start and it just gave her the confidence to keep going, and now she’s a Canadian champion.

“It’s kind of surreal, and to be honest with you, I picked up the sport because it helped me on a psychological and physical level,” said Page, “and then I didn’t actually think there was a competitive side of it until I understood what my body could do and how hard I could push it, and I think that I just ran with it.”

Her heaviest clean and jerk lift is 274 lbs, and her snatch lift is just shy of 200 lbs.

In September, she will be representing Canada for the first time in the World Masters Weightlifting Championships in Athens.

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“It’s unreal to be in Athens, where the Olympics originated, to be able to go back there and to have this experience at Worlds in Athens,” said Page. “It just kind of — worlds aligned the way they were supposed to have.”

Page owns Bench Community Fitness in Beamsville and she helps teach kids the importance of physical training.

“Now we see a lot more kids who are behind screens and on computers, and playing video games and social media, and they don’t understand the dramatic effect that being physical or having fitness in their lives could be,” said Page. “Not just from a physical perspective, but from a self-esteem perspective as well.”

While she will be representing the country in Athens, the weightlifter will have to foot the bill herself.

Her friends have launched a GoFundMe page to help her cover the roughly $4,000 trip.

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