POWERLIFTING: Bay power at World Masters champs

SHANE HURNDELL
Hawke's Bay powerlifter Bill Henderson took extreme measures to avoid the "Delhi Belly" at the world masters championships in India and they paid off.
"I stayed at a five-star hotel and only used bottled water for drinking as well as when brushing my teeth," Henderson said.
The former Hawke's Bay Magpies rugby fullback was reflecting on his success in the 110kg Masters One category at the Udaipur-hosted champs last week. He secured his first gold at world championship level with a 305kg deadlift.
Henderson also won a silver with a 285kg squat and another silver for his overall second placing with a total of 787.5kg, which also included a benchpress of 197.5kg.
"I took a lot precautions, only ate hotel food - nothing suspect - and even had antibiotics. None of us Kiwis contracted anything but a few of the Americans were hit hard," said Henderson, the only Hawke's Bay lifter in the three-strong Kiwi team at the champs.
"We still ate Indian food ... that's all part of experiencing another culture but we were careful with our selections. It was a real eye-opener for us and just reinforced how good us Kiwis have it back here," he said.
"The Indian people were fantastic. When we performed our haka it was the first time many of them had seen one and we got a tremendous response," he said.
Henderson will next year aim to qualify for his fifth world masters championships which are to be staged in Cape Town, South Africa. He expects tougher competition there as many lifters were afraid to compete in India because of the health concerns and fear of political unrest.
"We were lucky we didn't experience any unrest but even more luckier that I took the precautions I did," added Henderson who started the champs as the fourth seed in his eight-strong class.