Whitsunday Weightlifter Smashes States Heads To Nationals
A young Whitsunday Olympic Weightlifter is heading to the national level, having qualified in early April.
Callan Simpson, 16, has been training with the Base 51 Barbell Club in competitive Olympic Weightlifting for just over four months.
With his coach John Russolillo in tow, Callan has made exceptional gains in the sport in a short time, with the crowning achievement so far, his qualification for the National Competition at the Youth Queensland State Championships in Nambor.
“We made the decision only a few weeks ago to go down, and he had to lift in the afternoon, which is way harder to do,” John said.
“You must make weight to compete, and he’s in the 73-kilo category and if he was anything over that, he wouldn’t have been able to compete.
“He barely ate all day for his weigh in at 3.30pm!”
On his trip to the State Championships, Callan needed to lift a total of 136 kilograms in both the clean and jerk, and the snatch: the two lifts performed in the Olympics.
The snatch is notoriously difficult with the manoeuvre requiring the lifter to perform two movements: from the floor up to your shoulders, then over the head.
His first attempt of three was 55 kilograms.
“He caught that easily,” John said.
“Usually, when you achieve a weight, you go up for the next attempt, so we took it up to 58 kilos.”
Callan missed the second at 58kg, but John said he “looked really good, so we made the decision to go up in weight to 60kg, which is uncommon.”
“It was a technical fault rather than a weight problem; he was comfortably lifting the 58, it didn’t look hard for him,” John said.
“So we pushed it, and he’s never done 60kg before.”
Callan blitzed the 60kg, meaning his clean and jerk had to be 76kg to reach 136kg.
His first lift, he achieved 76.
“It was a very challenging weekend, and I’m proud because he comes to the gym five or six days a week with intention,” John said.
“I’m super proud of him, but not surprised he made nationals.”
Callan will compete in Nationals on June 3 via video link, with his goal to beat his own personal best and keep improving.
Base 51 Manuela Modai, Callan Simpson, and John Russolillo
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