Coleg Sir Gâr’s weightlifting facility, The Foundry, hosted an inter-college weightlifting competition organised by CollegesWales, WelshColleges Sport and supported by Welsh Weightlifting and Coleg Sir Gâr.

The Power-up FE Challenge event saw students from Coleg Sir Gâr and Coleg y Cymoedd competing with various weights and lifts with Welsh Weightlifting facilitating a pre-competition workshop where they shared advice on technique and competition work.

Another college was due to add more competition to the event but couldn’t make it on the day.

Rob Banham, sports coordinator at WelshColleges attended and supported the event at The Foundry, which is based at Coleg Sir Gâr’s Graig campus in Llanelli which is home to Llanelli Weightlifting Academy. “Power Up FE was designed to provide college learners with an opportunity to compete in a strength based challenge while developing better technique in the process,” he said. “It was great to see the first event involve so many participants new to the sport of weightlifting competing alongside more established lifters andI look forward to the competition becoming a regular fixture in the FE calendar. Thanks to Welsh Weightlifting for technical support and Coleg Sir Gâr for hosting at their amazing new facility.”

Harry Nelms, weightlifting athlete and a representative from Weightlifting Wales facilitated the pre-event workshop and Llyr Gravell-Davies refereed the competition.

Llyr is a current sport and exercise science degree student at UWTSD and has been a keen visitor to The Foundry since discovering Llanelli Weightlifting Academy which is a stone’s throw from his former Ysgol Gyfun y Strade school.

Taking the winning titles from the competition were two Coleg Sir Gâr students, Alex Ridgway who won the men’s competition and Lona Harding-Jones who won the women’s.

Winning third place in the women’s competition was Olivia Llewellyn and winning second place was Tia Higgins, both from Coleg y Cymoedd.

Coleg y Cymoedd students Taine Jones took third place in the male competition and Rhys Emmott took second place.

Stephen Williams, Coleg Sir Gâr sports lecturer said: “Following virtual competitions during COVID it was great to see college student athletes coming together to perform face to face.

“Hopefully, this will establish weightlifting on the college sports calendar in Wales, as lifting on strength and conditioning programmes and the sport of weightlifting itself continue to grow.”

Simon Roach, strategy and development manager from Weightlifting Wales added: "The Power Up FE competition provides an excellent opportunity for Weightlifting Wales to widen its strategic work partnering with ColegauCymru and Coleg Sir Gar to grow and strengthen the sport in Wales.

“The event supports our wellbeing objectives, promoting health and fitness through strength training and Weightlifting.

"We were delighted to have been able to support this competition and to see such enthusiastic engagement"