After two years of adversity, due to a broken wrist and then the pandemic, local powerlifter Caroline Cunniffe returned in style recently when she won a total of four medals at the IPF World Classic Powerlifting Championships in Halmstad, Sweden.

The 63-year-old Moate resident, who teaches at the Ballymahon Youthreach Center, competed in the Masters section and won bronze in the Squat and Bench events and a silver in the deadlift.

She and Norwegian Ingeborg Gjone both lifted a total of 265 kg over these three events, which meant that their placement for the total medals had to be decided based on their body weight.

The Scandinavian competitor was 400 grams lighter than Caroline, which meant that she took the silver, while Caroline went home with the total bronze.

It was a fantastic achievement from the local competitor, who reached three new national records and a great personal best of 125 kg in deadlift.

“It was a big improvement from my last worlds, 2019, where I only got one bronze medal in Squat,” Caroline explained.

“To be honest, I itched to come back and compete again. The training that led to it was very good, it went well for me and I felt that I developed well with it so I went in with a very positive view. . “

A total of 109 women and 127 men, from 33 countries, participated in the Masters event at the championships, which started on September 23 and ran for a total of 12 days.

Caroline’s progress was closely followed by her biggest fan, her 12-year-old granddaughter Deegan Hopkins, who lives in Perth, Australia.

“My daughter sent me a video of him watching me, and he texted me afterwards saying he was the proudest grandson in the world and that I had to send him some pictures!

“So it was a real highlight for me. He’s my best supporter – he’s very set. He’s a very good competitive swimmer, so he understands sports.”

After practicing swimming for many years, Caroline started powerlifting in 2016, after being encouraged to do so by Joe Macken, an instructor at the Athlone Regional Sports Center.

She has not looked back since and, in addition to training in Athlone a couple of times a week, she trains on the weekends under trainer Deividas Barisas at the ABS powerlifting gym in Finglas.

In July last year, Caroline appeared as a guest on Virgin Media’s Ireland AM program as part of a segment describing the benefits of resistance training for the older adult. She said that weightlifting grew steadily in popularity among women.

“If you went to the gym in Athlone ten years ago, you would see very few women do any weights, while that has changed a lot now. That stigma is starting to go away, which does not hurt,” she said.

After the successes in Sweden, Caroline will soon be back in action at home, competing in the national championships in Limerick later this month, and has already set her sights on next year’s worlds in Canada.