Nanaimo duo heading to Halifax for Junior National Weightlifting Championships
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NANAIMO — Two local athletes are part of Team BC for the 2018 Junior National Weightlifting Championships.
18-year-old Ayden Houle and 16-year-old Kendra Falkenberg will be heading to Halifax as part of the 11 member team from our province.
Raf Korkowski trains them both at Nanaimo’s Hercules Weightlifting Club and he’s also the head coach for the BC contingent heading to junior nationals.
Ayden Houle has been into competitive weightlifting for only about a year.
He was a high level BMX rider when he was younger and got into lifting for training purposes.
Houle went from BMX to road biking but has since left them both behind to focus on weightlifting.
“I ended up quitting BMX when I was 16, went into road biking and ended up stopping road biking and decided I wanted to do another sport. I wanted to try weightlifting again. I noticed I really liked it and started competing,” said Houle.
Recently Houle set a personal best with a 120kg clean and jerk, and he also performed a 73 kilo snatch lift.
Kendra Falkenberg has been involved with olympic weightlifting for about a year and a half.
But she started with kettlebell lifting about four years ago.
According to Korkowski, Falkenberg is a serious medal contender in her 90kg weight class.
She has a personal best lift of 71kg in snatch and 91kg in the clean and jerk.
Falkenberg would like to push those numbers a couple of kilograms higher at the upcoming junior nationals but she’s also trying not to put too much pressure on herself.
“I just want to do my best really. I don’t want to set the bar too high for myself and then be disappointed. I just want to go and lift and focus on that.”
