Nwaozor finds strength in sport

As the weight on the bar got heavier for Trinity Nwaozor, there was less of her lifting it.

The 19-year-old powerlifter, who moved from Nigeria to the Bahamas when she was two and relocated again to Brandon when she was 13, will carry a stunning life transformation with her into the Canada Powerlifting National Championships from March 9 to 14 in St. John’s, N.L.

“I really didn’t do any sports before I came into power lifting,” Nwaozor said. “I was pretty chubby kid. When I was 12 years old, I was like over 260 pounds. When I was about 14 I decided to do a really big cut and got down to 170 and then I started to get into the gym and started weightlifting.

“Once I started coming to Peak (Performance), someone told me I should start powerlifting and I thought ‘Sure, why not?’”

In the sport, athletes compete in the squat, bench press and deadlift, in that order, with the goal of posting the highest combined total.

She said there have been ups and downs as she works to increase her maximum lifts, although success did come quickly early on.

“There were definitely a lot of gains early in the sport,” Nwaozor said. “When I first started, I deadlifted about 315 pounds, and then about six months into power lifting, I deadlifted my first 400 pounds in my first comp (competition). From there it got worse and worse until a year later when I deadlifted 453 pounds.

“Right now it’s been stagnant since then.”

Incredibly, she only began to get really serious about the sport in November after seeing one of her competitors add about 60 kg to her total in four months. Nwaozor added a coach and has made more changes to her lifestyle to try to keep up.

“I thought ‘That’s literally impossible. How the hell did she do that?’” Nwaozor said with a chuckle. “I decided that day that until I was done competing that I was going to quit drinking and quit smoking until I could do something as crazy as that.”

Her current personal bests are 420 pounds in the squat, 225 in the bench and 453 pounds in the deadlift. She’s attended one provincial event, which was last spring, where she finished first in the junior women’s 84-kilogram event and qualified for nationals.

“It gives me the sense of long-term reward that I can’t get out of any other sport, honestly,” Nwaozor said. “Every day I have to put in the work and put in the work, and there are some days when I just get even worse. Those days will make me sad but literally just takes one win to negate all the losses that I’ve had in the past.

“That’s what powerlifting gives me.”

It also will give her a chance to do some travelling and get a look at the upper echelons of the sport in Canada. That includes the legendary Brittany Schlater, a Canadian and world champion who has set records in the sport.

“I’m excited to go around the East Coast for the first time,” Nwaozor said. “I’ve never been anywhere around Quebec, Ontario or any of those provinces so it will be nice to explore a little bit.

“Inside competition, it will be crazy because I’ll be meeting some of the best powerlifters in the country. I’m so excited to meet Brittany Schlater, who squats 300 kg. I think that is absolutely insane.”

The fundamental truth of competing in any individual sport is the only thing an athlete can control is their own performance. If someone else is better on the day, then they win.

That’s something Nwaozor understands as she heads into her first nationals.

“I just want to be the best version of me,” Nwaozor said. “There is no competition other than that.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com